


in my bones

by brieflygorgeous, Iris_Duncan_72



Category: Stray Kids (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Merpeople, Animal Instincts, Blood and Gore, Cannibalism, Childhood Trauma, Coming of Age, Fluff and Angst, Growing Pains, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Mild Sexual Content, Polyamory, except they're sirens, less than you think!!, more horny-coding than you expected, nyam nyam, one singular panic attack
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-01-09
Updated: 2021-01-09
Packaged: 2021-03-12 01:08:12
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 74,088
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/28627020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/brieflygorgeous/pseuds/brieflygorgeous, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Iris_Duncan_72/pseuds/Iris_Duncan_72
Summary: Felix has lived alone in the hot springs for as long as he can remember, with little knowledge of where he's come from or why he's here.  Everything changes on the day humans stop smelling just scary and start smellingdelicious.
Relationships: Bang Chan & Lee Felix, Hwang Hyunjin/Lee Felix/Lee Minho | Lee Know
Comments: 44
Kudos: 156





	in my bones

**Author's Note:**

> WASSUP NERDS!!! WELCOME TO THE SIREN EXTRAVAGANZA!!!!!! and by that i mean that i (iris_duncan_72) have been writing this awesome story of ours since last april and im celebrating its long-awaited birth into the world. why have i posted shit all (except the jeongsung) since september? because i have been slaving away at _this._
> 
> anyway, allow me to introduce my enabler, co-conspirator, beta, and 67% of the brains behind this fic - yeon aka [brieflygorgeous](https://archiveofourown.org/users/brieflygorgeous/pseuds/brieflygorgeous). this story would be a quarter of the length with a tenth of the plot without him. he's a kickass beta and a beautiful writer. go read his stuff, okay, you'll thank yourself for it later.
> 
> PSA - like it says on the box, there is ONE panic attack in here but it's a pretty big one. if that doesn't float your boat, skip from "Felix stopped in place so suddenly he nearly tipped face first into the wet sand" to "Felix curled up smaller". you won't miss any plot, promise.
> 
> now, onward!

The night was mild and the sky was clear, the twinkling stars partially obscured by overhanging trees and curls of steam rising from the springs. Usually, that view would be enough to hold Felix’s attention for hours as he drifted through the hot water on his back but tonight he was distracted. This grove he lived in rarely held any noises or scents that were not of his own making or belonging to the wildlife, whether roosting birds or scurrying animals or rustling leaves or the quiet bubbling of the pools. Tonight, however, there were distant sounds of music and raised voices, just loud enough to be grating on the nerves, and a faint but distinct smell of _human_.

A gentle breeze briefly cleared away the sharp scent of sulphur that came with the steam and Felix’s nostrils flared, baring his teeth up at the sky as that damn odour of _human-danger-sweat-want_ filled his nose again. He sat up in the water, turning into the wind and inhaling deeply. The smell elicited a confusing mix of responses in him – on the one hand, he’d long ago learned that humans equalled threats to be avoided, but on the other hand, there was something that drew him to them, urged him _closer, closer, closer_.

This was a fairly new development. Felix didn’t often catch their scent so it was difficult to pinpoint exactly when things had changed. If he thought hard about it, though, it might’ve been five or so summers since that incomprehensible thread of sheer _want_ had arrived. A thread that had been steadily growing in strength and now was a constant beat behind his ribs, his attention riveted to the far off sounds of human revelry.

He bumped into the edge of the spring, the rough rock unyielding against his soft belly, and Felix blinked in surprise, unaware that he’d allowed the scent to lure him towards it. He sank back into the water with a scowl but his hands reached out of their own accord, clinging to the rock, and he couldn’t tear them away. Growling in frustration, Felix dug his nails in and hauled himself up onto the ledge, hot water sluicing off him. The heady smell wrapped itself around him, enticing, but he had no way to follow it. It wasn’t like he could _swim_ there, was it?

Still mostly submerged, Felix’s long grey tail swished back and forth through the steaming pool, glistening in the light of the waxing moon.

Yeah, he wasn’t going anywhere on land with this, no matter how loudly that scent hummed in his blood, clogging his throat till he could taste it on his tongue –

Felix squawked in alarm, the shrill sound startling several nocturnal birds into panicked flight, screeching as they fled while he gaped down at himself. At where his tail had been a moment ago. At where his scales were rapidly morphing into tanned flesh. Felix squeezed the rock beneath him in a white-knuckled grip, staring in equal parts horror and fascination. Was he going mad? Had that damn scent completely addled his brain?

Almost as soon as it started, the transformation finished, leaving Felix with a pair of very human-looking legs. It hadn’t hurt, only felt tingly, like a numb limb waking up. He didn’t dare move or touch the – _his_ legs for a few moments, simply watching them with bated breath. When a whisper of wind raised goosebumps on his bare thighs, Felix exhaled in a rush, a little surprised at the response. That meant they were probably real. Tentatively, he brushed his fingertips over one thigh and promptly jumped at the bite of sensation. _Definitely_ real.

_Musk-danger-human-want._

Felix swallowed convulsively, turning to look over his shoulder at the shadowy trees before glancing back down at his new legs. Surely they had come to him for a reason. Surely it couldn’t be so very terrible to follow the insistent lure of the scent, despite the warning undertones that had always kept him well away.

Surely.

Not allowing himself to dwell on it any longer, Felix swung his legs up and out of the pool – only to immediately topple over onto one elbow. Startled, it took him a second to realise he’d used too much force, the human limbs much lighter and shorter than his tail was. He also wasn’t entirely certain how to use them because it was one thing to catch occasional glimpses of humans or to see littler legged creatures moving about, but it was a whole other thing to try it himself. Predictably, Felix’s first few attempts at so much as _standing_ resulted in abject failure, with him falling this way and that and, after briefly managing to teeter on top of these blasted stilts for the first time, tumbling right back into the spring.

He made the mistake of trying to breathe underwater and had to spend the next while braced against the rock ledge, coughing and spluttering. A hasty exploration of his ribs revealed that his gills had disappeared along with his tail, leaving him with only one means of respiration. Fleetingly, Felix worried if he would get them back but then he brushed the thought aside and hauled himself out of the water again. If these legs could manifest so easily, it seemed reasonable that they’d be able to _un_ -manifest with a similar lack of trouble.

After another dozen or so attempts, Felix finally mastered the ability to comfortably stand, weight balanced carefully on his feet. It took him a while longer to get used to the rolling gait he fell into when he started walking, especially when it came time to _stop_ , but eventually he got a grip on it. If he hissed and snapped his teeth at the tree roots and rocks that tripped him and scraped his skin along the way, well, that was his own business.

Felix couldn’t say how long he walked for, wavering and stumbling down the hill, following the persistent scent and gradually increasing sounds of music and raised voices. At last the trees started thinning out and he realised he could see better, a pervasive orange-gold glow coming from up ahead. Belatedly, Felix had the thought that he did not want to be seen, so he stuck to the shadows, hoping the light would not shine too brightly on his pale hair. The smell was very strong now, filling his lungs with every step he took, and shortly after he found himself freezing in place, slightly crouched behind a tree, eyes wide.

There were the humans. Dozens of them, all clustered in a large open area. They were loud and moving about in all directions, draped in colourful cloths that covered much of their bodies from view. The light and music were coming from here, pouring out on a wave of noise and _danger-human-want-sweat-danger-sweat-want_ that had Felix’s breath catching in his throat, digging his fingers into the bark of his chosen tree. Some of the humans moved slowly in groups, some of them moved fast and alone, their bodies twisting and bending in time to the music.

Felix had never seen anything like it before and while his survival instincts were drumming a steady beat in the back of his head, warning him _away, away, away_ , the intoxicating call of the scent was overwhelming. His mouth watered and his heartbeat quickened in anticipation for – for _something_ , something he wanted very badly, though he didn’t know _what_.

And then, quite without meaning to, he began to hum. The sound started out low and husky in the back of his throat, contained by his lips, but as Felix’s attention settled on a trio of humans not too far from him, the hum grew louder. It pushed outward until he had to relax his jaw, open his mouth just a little to let the sound out whereupon it became a quiet song, one that twined through the air, unobtrusive and inexorable. Felix had sung many songs to himself in the hot springs that he lived in but never one like this, never one that felt like honey on his tongue, sweet and sticky and inescapable.

The song reached the humans he sang to and as one they seemed to relax, turning towards him. Felix wasn’t afraid of being seen, having a dim awareness that they were no danger to him while they listened to his song, and his voice hitched, infusing the song with a beckoning note, urging them to follow him, follow as he had followed their call. Even without knowing exactly what he wanted from them, Felix knew it could not happen here where everything was so open and exposed. Thus he would take the humans back to where it was safe, to the springs.

So intent was Felix on leading the trio away with him that he did not notice the two pairs of dark eyes watching him from across the clearing.

The journey back up the hill was harder than the trip down, as Felix had to focus on walking, the humans, and singing. Not for a moment did he let up, the honey sounds still pouring from his throat even when he had to inhale. By the time the sulphur smell of the pools was in the air and the quiet sounds of water lapping against stone could be heard, his voice was tired, now rough instead of smooth, but that mysterious _need_ rode him hard and Felix pushed through the strain. The enraptured humans followed him without hesitation, their eyes glazed, their movements quick and sure.

At last the trees gave way to bare rock and gut-deep satisfaction coiled in Felix’s belly, instincts well-pleased that he’d made it back to his den, his nest, where he could – could do – could do _something_. _What_ , though? Even now, there was no clear direction for what he was supposed to be doing. A note of uncertainty crept into Felix’s voice and his song faltered, cracking and dying as his confidence washed away.

‘Where the hell are we? Marie? Linda?’

Felix jumped, nearly losing his precarious balance at the confused exclamation from one of the humans. It was a large male, if his minimal understanding of their physiology was correct, this one covered in blue and green fabric with an alarmed expression he directed at Felix. The other two humans still looked a little dazed, blinking slowly.

‘What’s going on here, boy?’ the man demanded, his gaze darting about like that of a cornered animal, his voice booming. ‘We were at the festival a minute ago! And why are you _naked?’_

His face twisted into a frightening grimace and Felix instinctively skittered back a step, pulse thudding in his throat. He didn’t know what to _do._

‘Is this some kind of bullshit island custom?’ the man growled, sweat beading across his forehead. ‘Did you drug us? Linda, Marie, snap out of it!’

The hunger to get closer, the fervent need to bring these humans here had completely vanished, leaving only terror in its wake, Felix’s breath coming quick and shallow. His instincts were screaming _danger-danger-danger_ at him and he wanted to hide, to flee the ugly threat of violence brewing in the air as the man’s expression slowly shifted from incomprehension to rage.

‘Are you mute as well as stupid, boy?’ the man barked, waving his meaty hands in Felix’s direction. ‘I’ll see you punished for this!’

A whimper escaped Felix, his shoulders hunching. He didn’t _understand_ , things had been going _fine_ , it had all changed so _quickly –_

‘That’s enough.’

A new voice came from the trees Felix and the humans had emerged from only a minute ago. It was cool and commanding and Felix felt his knees threaten to give way as it washed over him. The effect on the humans was even stronger, all of them going limp and dazed again.

‘You will all return to the festival. You thought you saw something in the shadows, but you were mistaken. Nothing out of the ordinary happened. Go now.’

As the humans promptly turned around and disappeared back the way they’d come, Felix simply stared in shock at the speaker, who stood at the treeline, the shining crimson of his eyes fading with the echo of his words. He was about Felix’s height and though he looked like a human, he certainly didn’t smell like one, nor did the taller man at his side. No, their scent was _hot-sharp-rich-heady-safe_ and any breath Felix had left rushed out of him, every fibre of his being crying out in giddy relief, shining joy, and an incomprehensible edge of _it-had-been-so-long_.

The pair stepped out of the shadows into the moonlight and Felix’s mouth went dry, his head swimming with the force of his response to them, for they looked as alluring as they smelled. Both of them were draped in the strange colourful cloths the humans had been wearing ( _camouflage_ , the still-functioning corner of his brain whispered) but their visible skin seemed to glow faintly in the dim light, the lines of their bodies utterly elegant and effortlessly confident. Silken hair, ink-black in this light, framed their faces and fell over the shoulders of the taller man, somehow sharp around the edges but their features so soft. Two pairs of gleaming dark eyes pinned Felix to the spot, the weight dragging at his bones.

Then the first man, the shorter one, spoke again and Felix was jolted out of his daze.

‘What the fuck do you think you’re doing?’ the man bit out, his voice no longer compelling but hard and cold.

The taller man stepped forward, flashing his teeth at Felix aggressively. ‘State your name and which frenzy you come from. I don’t recognise you. Who gave you permission to be here?’

Felix recoiled as though stung, feeling oddly betrayed that they were lashing out at him. They smelled _safe_ , why were they angry at him? He didn’t know what he’d done wrong. The beginning of a growl rumbled in the taller man’s chest and a fresh wave of adrenaline crashed through Felix.

‘Your kin will not protect you if you don’t answer us, ocean siren,’ he snarled. ‘You are in _our_ territory.’

Instincts demanded Felix lower his head and do what he was told. Instincts demanded he bare his teeth and growl right back at the newcomers. He did neither. Instead, he stepped backwards, off the rock ledge and into the familiar embrace of the steaming pool. Crashing down through the surface, he shut his eyes and curled up small, wishing he’d never emerged, never followed the human scent, never gotten legs. A tingling sensation swept over his lower half and up the sides of his ribs and when Felix opened his eyes, he felt a spark of relief at the sight of gills on his sides and a long sleek tail of cloud-grey.

The relief did not last long though, as an arm plunged down into the water, a hand seizing the scruff of Felix’s neck before he could dart away. He was hauled unceremoniously up into the air again, the instinctive whine of fearful protest quieting as he found himself nose to nose with the taller man, dark eyes boring into his.

‘Quite messing around,’ he huffed, impatient. ‘I doubt your frenzy will be more lenient than us.’ His fingers tightened on Felix’s nape, as though preparing to drag him out of the spring.

‘I don’t understand,’ Felix rasped, bracing his hands on the rock ledge. It had been such a long since he’d spoken aloud and his words were hesitant, uncertain. ‘I – I am Felix. I live here.’

The man frowned, not loosening his grip one bit, but it was the shorter man who spoke next, crouching down next to them. ‘Where do you come from, Felix? Only magma sirens live here.’ His voice was a little higher, a little softer than his companion’s, though his gaze was even sharper.

Felix rolled his shoulders, obliquely trying to free himself, and after a moment, the hand holding him fell away. A wild, unknowable piece of him cried out at the loss of contact. ‘I don’t understand,’ he repeated, sinking a little in the water. He stared at the strange, beautiful men, trying to convey his sincerity. ‘I come from here. I don’t – don’t remember where I came from before.’

He was being completely honest. All of Felix’s clearest memories were of life in these springs. He had a vague understanding that he had been somewhere else once upon a time, somewhere big and blue that had been _home_ , but that was about it.

His interrogators exchanged a glance before turning back to him, looking both confused and sceptical.

‘What, you don’t remember the _ocean?’_ the shorter man asked, cocking his head.

Felix shrank down further. ‘No,’ he mumbled. ‘I don’t know what that is.’

The taller man scoffed, rocking back on his heels. ‘Minho, come on, he’s clearly fucking with us.’

The shorter man, Minho ( _delicate mouth, round eyes, pert nose_ ), grunted noncommittally, watching Felix closely. ‘We’ve never seen you around the island,’ he said, ‘nor smelled you. How have you been eating?’

Felix cocked his head, making a quizzical noise. ‘I live _here,’_ he reiterated, patting the rock ledge he gripped. ‘This was... the first time I have left. I have never had legs before. I eat here.’

The taller man snorted but Minho muttered, ‘You _saw_ how skinny he is. It’s not impossible, Hyunjin.’

Hyunjin ( _plush lips, high cheekbones, long lashes_ ) raised a brow and protested, ‘An adult siren can’t survive on _this.’_ He tossed his head, long hair swishing over his shoulder as he indicated the greenery and wildlife around them. ‘It’s not like there’s seafood in these pools.’

Minho squinted at Felix, who tried not to flinch back. ‘Let me see your teeth,’ he ordered.

Felix couldn’t have denied Minho even if he’d wanted to, his blood thrumming with a visceral _craving_ for these dark-eyed men that would put his need for the humans to shame. So, puzzled but willing, he peeled back his lips. Maybe his teeth would convince them he was telling the truth?

Hyunjin sucked in a sharp breath at the same time that Minho hissed a low and vehement, _‘Storms.’_

Worried he’d done something else wrong, Felix relaxed his mouth, peering up at them with anxious eyes. ‘What is it?’ he ventured.

Hyunjin groaned, running a hand through his hair, while Minho sighed, ‘Your teeth, Felix. You still have baby teeth.’

Brows drawing together in helpless confusion, Felix said hesitantly, ‘Do I?’ These were the only teeth he’d ever had and they worked fine. What was wrong with them? ‘Is that... bad?’

Two pairs of dark eyes stared at him in disbelief.

Hyunjin rounded on Minho, incredulous. ‘So he’s never –’

‘Apparently not,’ Minho huffed.

‘And yet he somehow mesmerised three humans at the festival?’

‘I – what? That was – I didn’t mean to – to do anything,’ Felix blurted haltingly. He didn’t understand what they were talking about. ‘They smelled so _good_ and then... then I had legs so I went to them. I don’t know why I sang to them.’

‘Oh, you’ve got to be _kidding me,’_ Hyunjin muttered, leaning back on his hands and tipping his face to the sky.

‘I’m not lying!’ Felix exclaimed desperately, his tired voice cracking. He turned his wide-eyed gaze to Minho. ‘I’m _not.’_ They had to believe him, they _had_ to.

Minho looked at him, lips pursed. ‘Well, it’s still not completely out of the realm of possibility.’

Felix tried to work out whether that was a good thing or not and Hyunjin abruptly straightened, scowling at them both.

 _‘Really?’_ he demanded. ‘Minho, this is the most ridiculous –’

‘He has baby teeth,’ Minho snapped, shifting his piercing stare to Hyunjin, the taller man wilting slightly. ‘Explain that in any way that doesn’t involve him being here by himself for a damn good while. If any other adults were visiting him, they’d have helped him through the maturation process.’

‘Unless they deliberately didn’t for some reason,’ Hyunjin retorted. ‘It’s no less outlandish an idea than this one.’

‘Well, how about we ask Felix that?’ Minho gritted out, turning back to Felix with narrowed eyes. ‘Felix. Do you know any other sirens? Does anyone come and see you here?’

Felix gulped, his tail thrashing anxiously under the water. He was still so confused, his instincts conflicted as the part of himself he didn’t quite understand revelled in the scent of _hot-sharp-safe_ and the rest of him recoiled from the obvious threat the strangers posed.

But he really didn’t want them to be angry with him, so he answered, ‘No, I am alone.’ After a split second pause, he added, ‘What’s a siren?’

Hyunjin made a noise of pure frustration, burying his head in his hands. Minho regarded him probingly, his gaze seeming to peel back Felix’s skin and see to the core of him. Quiet hung over them all for a moment and Felix swallowed the distressed whine trying to escape him.

At last, Minho sighed and briskly rubbed a hand over his eyes. ‘You, Felix. You’re a siren and so are Hyunjin and I.’

‘Oh.’

The startled little exclamation left Felix on a sharp exhalation. He barely noticed Hyunjin lift his head slightly, dark eyes fixed on Felix again, too busy reeling under the weight of a sudden _knowing_. It washed over him like a storm-tossed wave while the unknowable part of him screamed in triumph so loudly his bones surely rattled.

 _Yes!_ it howled. _Yes! Like me! They are like_ me! _I am like_ them! _Yes!_

Yes, that was right. They smelled _safe_ because they were like him.

He _wasn’t_ alone.

‘I’m not alone,’ Felix whispered, blinking rapidly against a sudden stinging in his eyes. ‘You are – _like me_. _’_

Minho tilted his head, expression softening at the edges. ‘That’s right, Felix. We’re like you.’

‘More or less,’ Hyunjin muttered.

Felix turned to him, silently questioning.

Hyunjin sighed. ‘We’re magma sirens,’ he explained. ‘We swim in the roots of mountains. You’re... well, you’re an ocean siren. You come from the sea, the ocean.’

‘Big and blue,’ Felix mumbled. ‘I – I remember big and blue. I don’t know when. Long ago. Is the ocean like that?’

The magma sirens squinted at him, suspicious once more, but eventually Minho nodded. ‘Sometimes it’s green and grey, too, but it’s usually blue and it is very, very big.’

A feeling of _rightness_ swept through Felix. ‘I think... I once came from there.’

‘What else do you remember?’ Hyunjin asked, borderline accusatory, only to get sharply elbowed in the ribs by Minho. He winced but visibly bit his tongue, making no protest.

An unexpected slap of loneliness punched into Felix, leaving him momentarily winded, and he dug his fingers into the pool edge, rock biting into his palms. He felt oddly unmoored by the question, recognising that he _should_ recall more, that there was a lack, something important missing. It was just so much easier not to think about when there was no-one around to remind him how lonely he was.

‘I have been alone for... a long time,’ Felix murmured. ‘My memory of the ocean is happy so I – I cannot have been alone then.’ He unconsciously lifted one hand to his chest, rubbing it over his sternum where the loneliness ached worst. ‘I don’t like being alone. But...’ Felix blinked the glaze from his eyes, looking to Minho and Hyunjin, tasting their wondrous scent on his tongue. ‘I’m not alone anymore,’ he said quietly, hope a fragile thread in his voice. ‘You’re both here now.’

Hyunjin made a strangled noise in the back of his throat, flicking his gaze skyward briefly, while Minho’s attention lay so very heavily on Felix.

‘Yes,’ Minho agreed, calm and certain. ‘We’re here now.’ Then he elbowed Hyunjin again, more gently this time. ‘How long do we have?’

A thoughtful hum. ‘Maybe half an hour before we’re missed. They’ll start looking for us so we need to be long gone from here by then.’

‘Right.’

‘You’re leaving?’ Felix queried mournfully, the ache in his chest spreading its cruel tendrils.

Intense dark eyes met his. ‘We have some responsibilities to take care of,’ Minho replied. ‘But we’ll come back, _won’t we_ , Hyunjin?’

Hyunjin huffed. ‘Yeah, sure, we’ll come back.’ His expression was still dubious as he regarded Felix but his tone was begrudgingly sincere. ‘We’ll bring you some food, too. You really look like you need it.’

Felix pouted. ‘I _have_ food. I just want –’ he ducked his head – ‘not to be alone again.’

A gentle hand under his chin had him jerking his head up in shock, the contact burning him.

‘We won’t leave you alone, Felix,’ Minho said firmly. ‘I promise. We’ll be back by moonrise tomorrow, alright?’

Felix leaned into Minho’s gentle touch, his skin ablaze with blissful sensation, and made a wordless chirp of agreement.

‘Stay here in the meantime,’ Hyunjin told him, dark eyes sharp. ‘No more following nice smells, okay?’

Felix nodded, ignoring the wailing need to keep them here with him. ‘Trust you,’ he mumbled.

A pained expression flashed across Hyunjin’s face and he swiftly pushed to his feet, stepping back towards the treeline. ‘C’mon, Minho, we’ve got a trek before we’re back at the festival.’

Minho exhaled through his nose and released Felix, too, joining Hyunjin. Felix pressed his lips tightly together, scarcely containing the plaintive cry that struggled to escape.

‘See you tomorrow, Felix,’ Minho promised, and then they were gone.

* * *

_(‘Should we get in touch with Chan yet?’_

_‘No. Think how it would look if we showed up out of the blue with a clueless ocean siren. He hasn’t even matured yet. It’s not like he really poses much of a threat.’_

_‘Ugh, I know what he_ looks _like but this whole situation is seriously dodgy. What if he’s fooling us? You’re such a pushover for helplessness, maybe he’s playing that.’_

 _‘Oh, shut up. You saw how he badly he handled the humans and you still think he could lie so convincingly to_ us? _Besides, the ocean frenzy wouldn’t do something as stupid as this so close to the blood moon. Everyone’s instincts are already starting to riot.’_

 _‘Mmm... I still don’t like it. And, speaking of, what are we going to do about_ him _when the eclipse hits?’_

_‘Why would we do anything? Baby teeth, remember? It shouldn’t affect him much.’_

_‘Yeah, well, he shouldn’t have been able to catch a human scent from way back up there surrounded by all that sulphur either. He’s clearly long overdue going through his maturation and his body knows it.’_

_‘Well, you’d know more about than me so I’ll defer to your judgement. We don’t need to cross that bridge yet, though. For now, let’s see how tomorrow goes. And don’t forget to get some fish for him before we go back; it_ was _your idea.’)_

* * *

Despite all the excitement, or perhaps because of it, Felix got barely any sleep at all. He usually curled up in one of the small underwater caverns somewhere between the middle of the night and dawn for his rest, but today his mind was racing and would not stop. So many things had happened in such a short space of time and he didn’t even understand them all.

There was the whole mess with the human scent and the visceral hunger in his blood and the _legs_. How ridiculous was that? He’d had legs instead of a tail. It was like something out of a dream. And Hyunjin and Minho! Sirens, they’d said, like him, only not quite. That part was a bit confusing – they knew so _much_ and he knew so _little_ and, weirder still, they seemed to expect him to know it anyway. All the stuff with the teeth and the food and the ocean, he really wasn’t sure what it meant. Hopefully, the dark-eyed sirens would explain it to him when they returned. And they _were_ coming back. Minho had promised.

So Felix waited and waited, struggling to distract himself from the slow crawl of time, and eventually fell into a doze about midmorning, exhaustion finally claiming him. He woke sometime later, ears pricking at the sound of familiar voices calling from above the water. Hope bloomed in his chest, spreading in his blood, and he slid out of the cave, noting the long shadows and golden quality of the sunlight, before flicking his tail and surging up through the surface in a shower of droplets.

Quick as a hunting hawk’s dive, the hope transformed into glee as Felix’s lungs were filled with the scent of _hot-heady-sharp-safe_ and he trilled in greeting, high and sweet.

Dark eyes widened as the magma sirens saw him, both of them freezing by the edge of the spring. Minho relaxed first, his mouth curving into a warm smile, and he crouched, holding out a hand towards Felix. Unquestioning, Felix swam closer and was rewarded with Minho’s hand sweeping up the side of his neck and cupping his jaw. Felix’s lashes fluttered down, the bite of sensation nearly overwhelming, and he heard a rusty purr start up in his chest.

‘Hello, Felix,’ Minho murmured. ‘How are you doing today?’

‘You kept your promise,’ Felix said, the purr rolling through his words as he rubbed the side of his face against Minho’s palm. ‘You came back.’ That strange, wild part of himself wriggled happily; it was very, very important to him that the magma sirens had kept their promise.

‘And we brought food.’

Felix opened his eyes at the comment, attention shifting to the bag in Hyunjin’s hand. He made an interested noise and Hyunjin sat, emptying the bag of its contents on the uneven rock between them. Felix didn’t recognise the scaled creatures that flopped limply to the ground but they smelled good and he leaned in a little, nose twitching.

Mildly disconcerted that the dead animals all appeared to have a tail like Felix’s, albeit much smaller, he asked hesitantly, ‘What are they?’

‘Types of fish,’ Hyunjin replied, brows hitching up. ‘They come from the sea.’

Felix’s gaze flicked between the two sirens watching him. ‘And I can... eat them?’

A faint smile flickered over Hyunjin’s mouth. ‘Yes, I wouldn’t have given them to you if you couldn’t. Trust me on this.’

Felix stiffened, alarmed that there might be any doubt. ‘I trust you,’ he rushed out. ‘You smell safe, I trust you.’

Hyunjin’s eyes widened slightly, his smile falling away at Felix’s intensity. ‘I know, Felix, it’s alright. I know.’

The contented rumbling began again and Felix’s tail swished underwater happily. Without further comment, he dipped his head and took one of the smaller fish in his mouth. It was slick and squishy and tastier than any of the little creatures Felix usually caught. Delighted, he made short work of the fish, ripping it into more manageable pieces with his nails and teeth. The bones were fragile and he crunched through them with little difficulty.

When he’d swallowed the last of it down, he lifted his head, licking flecks of gore from his lips. ‘Thank you,’ he purred, throatier than usual. ‘I like fish.’

Minho’s gaze was heavy on Felix and his skin prickled in response, instincts murmuring something he couldn’t make out, but it wasn’t a _bad_ feeling, nothing that set off his warning alarms, and then Hyunjin distracted him with a loud snort.

‘Of course you do,’ he chuckled. ‘They _are_ what you’re designed to eat.’

‘Can I have more?’ Felix queried eagerly. Yesterday, he’d told the magma sirens that he had food but this was so _good_ and there was so _much_ of it...

‘As many as you like,’ Minho assured him. ‘Hyunjin and I have already eaten.’

So Felix fell upon the pile with gusto, devouring the smaller ones and working his way through the larger ones. He briefly choked on the spine of a bigger fish, the bones tougher than he was used to, and Minho gripped his jaw, ordering him to spit the bones out. Meekly, Felix did so and he was given a stern warning not to eat so fast.

‘You have baby teeth,’ Hyunjin said, as Minho began ripping the spines out of the largest fish, setting the bones aside. ‘Be careful or you might damage them.’

Felix recalled their first response to his teeth, wondering at it. ‘Do you have baby teeth?’ he asked curiously.

Hyunjin gave a bark of laughter, then bared his teeth at Felix in a too-wide grin. Felix barely reined in a squeak – those were _fangs_ , long and wickedly sharp, _nothing_ like his teeth.

‘Will _I_ get fangs?’ he breathed, awestruck.

‘After you go through your maturation process, yes,’ Minho answered, still focused on the fish.

‘What is that? When is it? How do I do it?’ Felix demanded, straining closer in his impatience.

He settled a bit when Minho’s piercing stare landed on him, though, having no wish to challenge the serene confidence Minho exuded as effortlessly as the delicious _sharp-heady-hot-safe_ scent.

‘It’ll happen when it’s ready to happen,’ was the unhelpful reply, Minho exchanging a loaded glance with Hyunjin. ‘It’s a process that causes some... changes in your body. Getting your adult teeth is one of the more obvious effects.’

Felix inhaled to ask for more details but was forestalled by the fish suddenly shoved into his mouth. He definitely squeaked this time, even if the sound was a bit muffled, recoiling from Hyunjin with wide eyes.

‘Eat,’ Hyunjin said with a frown. ‘An adult siren could eat twice this much and come back for more.’

Felix did as he was told with minimal pouting, throttling his curiosity as best he could. Then Minho gave a soft laugh, breathy and high-pitched, lips curved up in a twinkling smile that sent Felix’s stomach into freefall.

 _‘Some_ adult sirens could do that,’ Minho amended with a pointed tilt of his head towards Hyunjin. ‘Not everyone has a bottomless stomach, Hyunjinnie.’

Hyunjin’s eyes narrowed and he growled at Minho but there was little real threat in the warning rumble. The pink tinge across the arches of his cheekbones further reduced any menace to absolute nil and he appeared... open. Playful. It was an extraordinarily beautiful look on him and Felix wanted to see it every day for the rest of his life.

Then Hyunjin seemed to remember his presence and the blush increased, dark eyes going wide and plush lips pursing in embarrassment. He cleared his throat, avoiding both Minho and Felix’s gazes as he stared fixedly off to one side. Minho snorted quietly but made no comment, finishing with the last of the fish and tossing aside the spine. Felix silently mourned the loss of the sweet moment but he kept his mouth shut, simply reaching for one of the freshly prepared fish and ripping off its head with his teeth.

Felix’s tail itched for being so still and, snack in hand, he tipped himself backwards and pushed away from the edge of the spring. He felt more than saw two pairs of dark eyes snap to him and half-expected one of the sirens to call him back. But they didn’t so he drifted through the steam, tail moving leisurely beneath the surface and the tips of his flukes occasionally breaking through, gnawing unhurriedly on the fish. It was very bloody, certainly more than Felix’s usual fare, and he took great pleasure in sucking the thick liquid from the meat, humming in content. When he returned to the poolside, licking up stray crimson droplets from his fingertips, he glimpsed that heavy look laden with hidden meaning on Minho’s face again and on Hyunjin’s too. A spark of lightning danced over Felix’s skin, an awareness of _something_ that made that wild new edge in him preen in satisfaction, but then Minho blinked and Hyunjin crunched down on a spine and the moment was lost.

Before Felix could decide whether to take another large fish or a small one (he _was_ getting full), Minho asked, ‘Have you seen any other siren’s tail, Felix? Aside from your own.’

Felix’s brows drew together. ‘No. You and Hyunjin are the only sirens I’ve ever met.’ A thought crossed his mind, distracting him from the confusing nature of Minho’s question (Felix had already _said_ he was alone, who else’s tail could he have seen?), and his eyes went round. ‘Are yours different to mine? Do all magma sirens have the same tails? Does my tail look like other ocean sirens’ ones?’

Hyunjin huffed. ‘No two tails are the same but yours will be similar to your kin’s, just as mine and Minho’s are alike.’

Lips twitching up in an indulgent smile, Minho said, ‘Ocean sirens bear all the shades of the sea. Sometimes that includes grey but not as much as yours – solid grey is for juvenile sirens before they mature. Magma sirens’ scales reflect the colours of the earth’s blood, such as red and orange and gold, but we wear only black when we’re young.’ Throwing Hyunjin a sidelong glance, he added, ‘Gold is less common and few sirens are lucky enough to get so much as a single scale of it.’

The implication was obvious, especially with Hyunjin’s scowl, and Felix raised himself a little further out of the water, leaning towards Hyunjin with a pleading expression.

‘Can I – can I see your tail?’ he asked, hope fluttering against the inside of his ribcage.

Hyunjin stared at him blankly for an extended moment and then his shoulders slumped. ‘Oh, alright,’ he sighed.

Felix trilled, splashing droplets of water into the air with his flukes in his delight, and he could have sworn he spotted the edge of a reluctant smile creeping across Hyunjin’s face until the magma siren turned away.

‘Stop looking so smug, you’re doing this as well,’ Hyunjin informed Minho sternly, rising to his feet and beginning to remove the strange cloths draped over his body.

‘Of course I am,’ Minho replied serenely. ‘Why show Felix only one of us in our surface skin when we could show him both?’

Unable to contain his excitement, Felix rolled into a backwards somersault, tossing his head when he resurfaced to get the wet hair out of his eyes. Then Minho joined Hyunjin in taking off the shaped cloths he wore and Felix couldn’t resist another question.

‘Why do you wear those things? What are they for?’

Hyunjin paused, newly bare to the waist and _oh_ , his skin was so very smooth that Felix’s fingers _burned_ with the desire to touch, to stroke, to feel.

‘They’re called clothes,’ Hyunjin explained, and Felix tried valiantly to pay attention. ‘Humans have them because they don’t like showing off much bare skin, so when we want to walk among them, we must wear clothes too.’

Felix mumbled a vague confirmation of understanding before very decisively and deliberately wrenching his gaze from Hyunjin’s lean body – only to run straight into Minho’s fair skin instead. The slightly shorter siren was more compactly built, steely muscle shifting with his every movement, and Felix shivered, unexpected heat whispering through his blood. Perhaps he needed to haul himself out of the pool for a breath of cooler air?

The rest of the clothes were soon discarded in neat piles and the magma sirens resettled on the side of the spring, legs swishing through the water, Hyunjin hissing at the temperature. Felix watched with wide eyes, nearly forgetting to keep treading water as an indescribable ripple shimmered over them both and suddenly there were scales instead of skin, tails instead of legs. The tails were sleeker than Felix’s, long and streamlined, the human skin of Minho and Hyunjin’s upper halves acquiring a sheen like they’d had beneath the moon. Their hair walked a fine line between black and very dark red and their eyes gleamed crimson, as Felix had seen Minho’s flash last night.

Hyunjin’s scales were done in broad streaks of scarlet and gold, and when he flared the fins folded against his arms and upper tail, Felix’s breath caught to see a rich burgundy hue and sharp spines. Minho had a more muted palette, crimson and deep red, his own fins almost as dark as his hair.

‘You’re so...’ Felix’s words trailed away into nothing as he drank them in, unblinking. He’d never seen anything like these colours before and the thought that his own scales, soft, unobtrusive grey, would one day become something bright and beautiful? It was mind-boggling.

Hyunjin smirked, sliding into the water, Minho following him. They both ducked beneath the surface and Felix did the same, rendered speechless anew by the sight of their stunning tails moving gracefully alongside each other. The pool, which until recently Felix had considered quite large, suddenly seemed cramped, too small to contain so many sirens. He was hesitant to approach them, automatically drifting towards the far side to give them more room, but Minho crossed the distance to him, flicking his flukes at Felix’s tail as though to encourage him. Emboldened, Felix uncoiled his tail, propelling himself closer, though he took great care not to accidentally touch either magma siren. Instincts raked sharp claws under his skin, reminding him that Minho and Hyunjin were top predators and no matter the resemblances between them and himself, Felix was under no illusions about who was more dangerous.

Rolling onto his back near the bottom of the spring, flukes and fins twitching this way and that to keep him in place, Hyunjin caught Felix’s attention with a short... sound? A sharp, shrill sort of whistle that travelled oddly through the water and the like of which Felix had never heard before. Nonetheless, it ignited a visceral reaction as some part of him interpreted the sound as _command-listen-come_ and Felix dipped down deeper, hovering by the supine siren.

Hyunjin grinned, fangs glinting in the muted light, and pushed upwards, swimming in a loop around Felix. Felix yipped in surprise at the sudden proximity, rearing back on automatic only to bump into silken scales behind him. Hyunjin didn’t jerk away as expected, instead reaching out to brush his fingers over Felix’s tail in a moment of contact that stoked the low-burning fire in Felix’s blood. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d felt the touch of anyone but himself and it was a startlingly potent pleasure. A lilting whine escaped him, distorted by the water, but Hyunjin seemed to understand, stroking his burgundy flukes over Felix’s opaque tail fins.

Then, with another flash of sharp teeth, Hyunjin glided up towards the surface and Minho swam closer. He made an odd whistling noise too, though unlike Hyunjin’s, his went high instead of low and without understanding quite how he knew it, Felix recognised this sound as _well-safe-comfortable-trust?_ Felix warbled an affirmative, his throat pitching the chirping noise so it would better travel through the water. He felt a little disoriented, still in awe at their tails and his body humming with the aftershocks of Hyunjin’s casual touches, but he wasn’t uncomfortable. Never had he felt safer.

At that, Minho smiled and extended a hand. Felix took a moment to realise it was an invitation and he was quick to accept it when he caught up. Minho’s fingers closed tightly around Felix’s and with two powerful strokes of his tail, he towed them up through the surface, drops of water flying as they flicked their hair out of their faces.

Hyunjin, sitting on a submerged ledge with the looming rockface at his back and wet hair slick over his shoulders and chest, declared happily, ‘Now _this_ is a nice temperature. Much better than the sea.’

Releasing Felix’s hand, Minho hummed in agreement and drifted over to perch next to Hyunjin.

Felix floated along in front of them, a worrisome thought occurring to him. ‘Is the ocean... cold?’

‘Usually, yes,’ Minho answered, curling his flukes up out of the water and back down. ‘Don’t worry – you’re designed to live in it. You’ll just need an adjustment period.’

Well, that didn’t sound _so_ bad. Felix wasn’t fond of getting cold. ‘Will you take me to the ocean?’ he asked. ‘I don’t know where it is.’

Hyunjin snorted, opening his eyes a sliver. ‘It’s all around the island, big and blue as far as you can see. And –’ he exchanged another glance with Minho – ‘yes, we’ll take you there. Not yet, though.’

Felix’s brow creased. ‘Why not?’

‘There’s a very important festival going on at the moment, which means lots of humans and other sirens are around. You’re not meant to be here at all so we need to wait until after the festival is complete and thing are quieter again,’ Hyunjin explained.

Frown deepening, Felix sank further down, seeking comfort in the warm water. ‘So I... can’t see other sirens.’ The words tasted sour in his mouth.

‘No,’ Minho disagreed immediately, gaze intent with sincerity. ‘You _will_ see them and talk with them and swim with them. Just not right now. Hyunjin and I need to find out where you might have come from and what happened to you. Otherwise, we’re likely to be accused of kidnapping you and everything will get... difficult.’

‘Oh.’ Felix _definitely_ didn’t want Minho and Hyunjin to get in trouble, especially not when all they were doing was helping him. ‘Alright then. When does the festival finish?’

‘It moves to the next island five days from now. After that, we’ll take you down to the sea,’ Minho promised.

Felix trilled in excitement. He could wait five days, it wasn’t so very long. Then, as the flukes of Hyunjin’s tail lifted up like Minho’s had, another question sprang to mind. ‘Why do you call these your surface skins? After all, you’re _under_ the water,’ he reasoned.

Minho grinned and Hyunjin playfully flicked droplets from his fins at Felix, prompting him to squawk in protest and retaliate at once, delight sparking in him. Minho laughed outright and Hyunjin’s smirk broadened into a wide smile, transforming the spark into a flood that left Felix breathless.

‘We may be under the water,’ Hyunjin agreed at last, ‘but we’re aboveground.’

Of course. They were _magma_ sirens. Magma, blood of the earth.

Felix ventured a little closer in his interest, within reach of their tails. ‘Do you have – another skin? A magma skin?’

‘We call it our true skin,’ Hyunjin corrected, a tantalising openness to his expression, ‘because it is the skin we are born in.’

‘It is only worn when we swim in the magma rivers and lakes of our home,’ Minho continued, almost wistfully. ‘It is suited to that environment alone.’

‘And... what’s that environment like?’ Felix asked, his tone hushed.

‘Very, very hot. There is no air, no water, only magma. We live on light and heat energy, a bit like plants.’ Minho gestured to the greenery all around. ‘Those of us who choose to wear our other skins must come up to the surface from time to time to nourish these bodies.’

Then Hyunjin stepped in to tell Felix about the beautiful golden jewellery they wore, ornamentation made of a substance that could only survive when bathed in magma. He described molten necklaces and bracelets, rings and cuffs, and piercings of all kinds. As soon as the sirens began their journey to the surface through the deep-sea vents and tunnels they’d carved, temperatures rapidly dropping, the jewellery melted away along with their true skins until they were finned and bare.

Well, mostly bare – Felix noticed the little black piercing both sirens had on the backs of their right wrists, unobtrusive enough that he hadn’t seen it in last night’s shadows. He couldn’t see the detail of the piercings from a distance, only that they had two short sharp points sticking out through the skin. Interest burned bright on his tongue, but Felix managed not to ask about them. Although neither Minho nor Hyunjin made any move to hide the tiny ornaments, they made absolutely no mention of them either.

After both crimson-eyed sirens satisfied Felix’s curiosity about their world somewhat further, Hyunjin insisted Felix eat more fish. Unable to see how he’d be able to finish them all off any time soon, Felix in turn declared that Hyunjin must help him. Although initially reluctant, Hyunjin proved to be quite agreeable following the judicious use of a wide-eyed pout. Minho snickered, to Hyunjin’s chagrin, but when Felix deposited a fish on his lap and made a pleading face, Minho went slightly pink and folded as well. Felix couldn’t help but feel rather proud of himself.

Minho and Hyunjin left not long after that, having duties at the festival to attend to, but they promised to return tomorrow. Even so, Felix had to fiercely rein in his building need to wrap himself around them and not let go.

 _Sink my teeth in deep, hold on tight,_ the wild edge of him hissed, but that was a private madness and he ignored it.

* * *

_(‘That was just painful. He’s so far past ready. Did you see his expression when you said we were leaving? He hasn’t even known us a full day and night.’_

_‘Oh, I saw. What do you propose we do, hmm?’_

_‘Don’t look at me like that! I was being_ cautious _, there’s nothing wrong with that. And... yeah, okay, I know what we have to do.’_

 _‘Hey, no, we’re not doing it if you have any doubts. This is a big commitment. We don’t_ have _to do it. It won’t kill him to wait a little longer until we return him to whichever frenzy he comes from. Don’t let the eclipse push you into this either, I know it’s got you worked up.’_

 _‘I won’t and I’m not, really. He’s... he’s so vulnerable. Gods, he knows_ nothing _. Imagine if someone other than us had found him, think how badly that could’ve gone. As for the ocean lot, well, they’ve had years to come looking for him. They haven’t._ We _found him. I’m on board with this, if you are.’_

_‘Alright then. We’ll ask him about it tomorrow.’)_

* * *

The magma sirens visited the following afternoon when the sun was sinking behind the treeline, casting long shadows amongst the pools of golden light. They brought more fish and Minho ripped out the spines of the larger ones again so Felix could eat them safely.

While Felix contentedly devoured the fish, Hyunjin told him about the island, how it was only one of dozens, one of the larger pieces in this archipelago, and considered a part of the magma siren territory. That was one of the main reasons he and Minho had been so alarmed to find Felix tucked away in a corner of it – ocean sirens had to seek permission to visit and although plenty had for the festival, none of them would have strayed so far from the celebrations. Then Felix asked about the festival itself, as it seemed to be something both humans and sirens took part in.

‘It is,’ Minho agreed. ‘The people who live on these islands have known of our existence for centuries, passing on stories through their families and settlements. This is a celebration for us, their way of honouring the spirits who live in the waters and volcanoes on these islands. We don’t advertise our presence strongly but they know we come to shore for this.’

‘So the humans I sang to were... islanders?’ Felix queried dubiously. His memory of the man’s aggression didn’t line up with Minho’s description of reverence.

‘No,’ Hyunjin growled, slapping the surface of the pool with his flukes. ‘They were _tourists_.’ He spat the word. ‘Outsiders, come to mock and pry. Few of them have any sense of respect.’

When Hyunjin made no move to say anything more, scowling at the sky, Minho continued quietly, ‘It was not so many years ago that a group of tourists visited with the intent to hunt us down, to find these elusive spirits and capture them.’ His upper lip curled, a whisper of rage glimmering in his eyes. ‘They murdered an entire family of your kin, Felix.’

An icy chill crept over Felix, despite the heat of the water. He must have been quite mad to ever think, even briefly, that he wanted to get closer to such monsters.

‘What happened to them?’ he asked, voice reduced to a hoarse whisper.

‘Some drowned, the rest were torn to shreds by other ocean sirens who arrived too late to help,’ Hyunjin replied, a snarl rippling through the words. ‘None have tried their luck since.’

‘Good,’ Felix muttered, almost surprised at how vehement he was. He found himself flexing his fingers instinctively, as though preparing to rend human flesh with his own nails.

They moved to lighter subjects after that and as dusk swathed the sky in dark blue, Hyunjin and Minho prepared to leave. When they were both in human skin and dressed again, however, they crouched by the edge of the spring, exchanging a glance.

‘Felix,’ Minho began seriously, ‘we have something to ask you.’

Mildly concerned at his tone, Felix propped himself up on the rock ledge. ‘Yes?’

‘Tomorrow there will be a lunar eclipse, a blood moon. These events have a strong effect on sirens, both magma and ocean,’ Minho explained, ‘although you’ll notice it less as you haven’t matured yet.’

‘Your body will still feel it,’ Hyunjin continued, ‘and will be in a... heightened state of awareness, of sorts. This state would make it a bit easier for you to start the maturation process –’

‘And I could get my fangs?’ Felix interrupted excitedly. ‘And my tail colours?’

Hyunjin cleared his throat pointedly, arching a brow. ‘I wasn’t quite done.’

‘Oh, right.’ Felix ducked his head, abashed, peering up at them through his lashes. ‘Sorry.’

Exhaling through his nose, Hyunjin waved a hand. ‘Never mind. Listen, Felix, we know you’re excited for those things but you still need to think carefully about this. The maturation process takes place over a period of time and it’s not something to go through alone because, ah...’

‘Some parts will hurt,’ Minho interjected bluntly. ‘A lot. That’s mostly at the end but in the meantime there’ll be plenty of other unsettling changes. You are long overdue going through this, which is why we’re offering you the choice, but it will require a great deal of trust on your part. Trust for _us_ , that we will take care of you through it.’

‘Would you?’ Felix asked, bright-eyed and nearly trembling with a _craving_ , a _yearning_ he didn’t fully understand. ‘Would you take care of me, both of you?’

They stared at him for a moment, as though he’d startled them.

‘Yes,’ Minho said softly. ‘We would.’

‘We would,’ Hyunjin echoed.

‘That’s all that matters,’ Felix said earnestly. ‘If I was meant to do it a while ago, there’s no reason to wait. I already told you – I trust you, Hyunjin, Minho. So if you say you’ll take care of me when I need it, then I believe you.’

Minho sat back on his heels, holding Felix’s gaze. At last, he dipped his head in a short nod. ‘Alright. We’ll start tomorrow evening.’

‘There will be a special event, on account of the eclipse,’ Hyunjin murmured. ‘It’s called the Blood Moon Feast. It’ll mean we can stay with you as long as you need. No-one will come looking for us during the feast.’

Anticipation was a palpable taste on Felix’s tongue and he swallowed thickly, attention flicking between the two pairs of dark eyes watching him. ‘Alright,’ he whispered. ‘Alright.’

‘Try not to worry,’ Minho said gently, reaching out to stroke his thumb over Felix’s cheek.

‘After all, you’re going to have _us_ taking care of you,’ Hyunjin smiled, eyes curving into delicate crescents.

‘I trust you to do it well,’ Felix replied, voice a little stronger.

‘Good.’ Minho tapped the tip of Felix’s nose and stood, Hyunjin following suit. ‘See you tomorrow, Felix.’

Needless to say, Felix got absolutely no sleep that night.

Time had surely never dragged her heels so slowly. By the time the day was done and twilight crept over the land, Felix was ready to crawl out of his skin. However, given Hyunjin’s words yesterday, he couldn’t help but wonder if his agitation was partly due to the coming eclipse and whatever effects it was having on his body.

When the moon rose, it was huge and round and silver, seeming to hang low in the sky – except for one edge of it, bathed in shadow. The lunar eclipse had already begun and excitement pulsed in every beat of Felix’s heart.

Minho and Hyunjin arrived not much later, though Felix heard them before he saw them. They were singing, their voices piercing and utterly captivating for all that they were quiet, the tune lilting up and down, back and forth. It soothed Felix, reminded him of his own experience singing just a few days ago. But that had been for humans, so what was _their_ song for?

Perhaps he should have expected the pair of humans that came stumbling through the trees ahead of the sirens, but he didn’t.

Felix hissed in alarm, darting away from the edge of the spring and hiding in the steam clouds before he recognised the dazed look on the humans’ faces and realised they were – what was the word? – mesmerised. Minho and Hyunjin emerged from the shadowy treeline and the humans, a stocky man and a thickset woman, stopped in place. The sirens passed them, approaching the spring and still singing. Their clothes were much looser today, long and rippling and dark red, reminiscent of their flukes, their eyes shone crimson, and Hyunjin had ribbons of scarlet and gold woven through his hair. Felix felt as ensnared as the humans, his head swimming with an overwhelming confusion of _hunger-need-trust-heat-want_.

‘I told you not to worry, didn’t I?’ Minho crooned, beckoning Felix closer while Hyunjin continued his song.

His spine tense in spite of the reassurance, Felix slowly drifted to the poolside, allowing Minho to card his fingers through Felix’s damp hair. ‘You did,’ he agreed warily, fighting to keep his guard up when that strange new edge of him wanted only to roll mindlessly in Minho’s heady scent. ‘But why are – why –’

‘This is the night of the Blood Moon Feast, sweetheart,’ Minho murmured, one corner of his mouth curled up. ‘So, we feast.’

Felix’s breath hitched and, overhead, the shadowed side of the moon took on a red tinge. Staring at Minho, he found only sincerity in those heavy-lidded eyes, though he needn’t have checked, really – visceral hunger pounded through him, filling his mouth with excess saliva. But Felix remained cautious, remembering how dangerous the humans could be, unsure how he could possibly be meant to... _eat_ one.

His apprehension must’ve shown on his face because Minho smiled and said softly, ‘Let us show you. You trust us to look after you, yes?’

Felix nodded quickly. He trusted them, absolutely and definitely, he just... didn’t quite understand, needed a little convincing.

‘Wonderful.’

Minho turned to Hyunjin and the enthralled humans, stalking back to them with the single-minded intensity of a hunter tracking prey. He started singing again, a delicate tune that coaxed and persuaded and had Felix digging his fingers into the rock ledge in equal parts for support and restraint. Hyunjin flashed a gleaming smile Felix’s way, all fangs and _hunger_ , before twining his long fingers through the woman’s yellow hair and tugging her head back. He brushed his lips over her pink skin and then he _tore her throat out._

The air punched out of Felix’s lungs and he couldn’t _breathe_.

Blood went everywhere and Felix’s attention was riveted to it while the woman gurgled and jerked violently in Hyunjin’s hold. Minho’s song continued uninterrupted and the remaining human stood serenely, as though he wasn’t splattered with the woman’s lifeblood, as though Hyunjin’s mouth wasn’t glistening with a heavy red Felix _longed_ to taste. Her legs gave out and Hyunjin followed her onto his knees, keeping her upright as he tore and ripped and bit, the squelching of broken flesh obscene.

A scalding wave of _need-hunger-want_ flushed through Felix and he swallowed convulsively. The uneven brim of the spring dug into belly as he tipped towards the others, straining closer, but he didn’t care. Urgent, pathetic little whimpers clawed their way out from deep in his chest but he _didn’t care_. The rich scent of blood filled his lungs, his head, his whole body, and _oh,_ how his teeth _ached_. Felix’s inhibitions had dissolved like morning mist in the sun and he was so very hungry, his craving to lap up that dripping blood an all-consuming burn within. He might as well have never eaten in his entire life and now he _wanted, wanted, wanted –_

Hyunjin lifted his head, his face a mess of gore, and he caught Felix’s desperate gaze and he _grinned_. ‘Are you hungry, little one?’ he purred, his voice guttural.

A pitching whine left Felix as he tried to stretch closer, ready to climb out of the pool and drag his tail over the rough ground.

‘Don’t tease, Hyunjinnie,’ Minho tutted, though his tone was hardly scolding. ‘Poor Felix is _starving.’_

And before the glaze had even begun to lift from the human man’s eyes, Minho ripped into the side of his neck with unrestrained ferocity and the yearning in Felix reached feverish heights.

‘No, no, stay there,’ Hyunjin crooned as Felix prepared to haul himself from the water. ‘Stay right there, Felix.’

Felix mewled, needy and _hungry_ , but fell quiet when Hyunjin rose and came to him instead, dragging the dead human by the back of her ruined neck. Shrugging out of his bloodstained clothes, Hyunjin slid into the spring and shivered as his surface skin rippled over him, human legs exchanged for a scarlet and gold tail. Bracing one strong arm on the rock ledge, he reached out and brought the human to the very edge, blood still seeping from the violent wounds.

‘Eat,’ he instructed, guiding Felix nearer with a hand on his shoulder.

Hyunjin’s touch was a searing brand on Felix’s skin, his scent almost as strong as the blood, and Felix tucked himself close to the magma siren, his shoulder nudging Hyunjin’s chest and braided hair, their tails brushing underwater. Then he fell upon the human, unable to wait a single moment longer, and Felix shuddered as the flesh hit his tongue. The wild edge in him that now practically encompassed him howled in triumph, urging him to drink, to feed, to dig deeper and _tear_ , and Felix offered no resistance. He ripped through skin and muscle with ease, gulping it down clumsily in his haste, feeling blood escape his mouth and trail down his chin, his neck –

_Crunch._

He recoiled, a confused growl bubbling up as he glared at the mangled meat before him. What had he bitten into that wouldn’t give way? Felix prodded with his fingertips, stopping when he felt bone. This was too thick for him, his teeth would break first, and he hissed in frustration, hackles rising.

‘Ah, yes,’ Hyunjin murmured above him, his voice soothing Felix at once. ‘Baby teeth, hmm?’

Felix tipped his head back, finding bright eyes already watching him, and he tried to say _please_ but the word got stuck in his throat. A muted whine emerged instead, pleading, and Hyunjin’s expression softened.

‘Do you want me to help?’ he cooed. ‘Want me to feed you, little one?’

The suggestion sparked a flood of warmth that washed away the irritation and Felix pressed himself a little closer, his body curving up against Hyunjin’s. There was still no room for words in his head so he simply made an enthusiastic sound somewhere between a yip and a squeak to indicate his agreement.

Hyunjin smiled widely and bent himself over the human, effortlessly shattering bone between his powerful jaws. He ripped out a mouthful, chewing purposefully a few times before dipping his head to Felix’s. Understanding what was about to happen, Felix opened his mouth, an instinctive purr starting up in his chest, and Hyunjin didn’t hesitate. His lips were slick and warm against Felix’s, his tongue silken as he pushed the softened meat into Felix’s mouth, and the purr grew louder. The flesh went down easily and as soon as he’d swallowed it, Felix turned to Hyunjin again, lips parted in silent question.

‘Oh, you like being fed? Like someone else getting through all that bone for you, little one?’ Hyunjin chuckled, almost completely bracketing the ocean siren’s body with his own now. ‘You’ll end up spoiled rotten if you’re not careful.’

Felix huffed, wriggling in place impatiently.

With another laugh, Hyunjin did as he was bid, tearing another mouthful from the human. As he tipped his head back to crunch through the bone, a fat droplet carved a red path down his throat and Felix’s attention was transfixed. Twisting so they were face to face, Felix braced a shy hand on Hyunjin’s broad chest and leaned upward to drag his tongue over the soft heat of Hyunjin’s skin and lap up the stray blood. He registered Hyunjin going very still under the touch but as the magma siren gave no sign of discomfort, Felix didn’t stop until he’d caught it all.

However, the moment he moved away Hyunjin followed him, crowding Felix against the ledge until he was pressed firmly between Hyunjin and the rock, Hyunjin’s tail winding around his. The fire raging under Felix’s skin _surged_ and he shuddered, overwhelmed by the endless touch. A throaty purr rumbled out of Hyunjin’s chest and he gripped Felix’s chin with one hand, his mouth insistent. Felix parted his lips at once, humming in satisfaction, kneading Hyunjin’s shoulders on automatic. He was mildly surprised when Hyunjin didn’t back away after pushing the meat into Felix’s mouth, instead staying close as he purred, skimming his nose over Felix’s cheekbone and down his jaw. Sheer pleasure had Felix arching into the feathering contact and it was a struggle to not choke in his distraction.

_‘Hyunjin.’_

Hyunjin froze at Minho’s utterance of his name, smooth as worn stone and twice as hard. He wrenched himself upright, movements jerky as he lifted his head, gazing behind Felix. Breathless, Felix blinked twice and turned to look over his shoulder, seeing the other magma siren with blood smeared over his mouth and chin, crouched over the dead human man and staring at Hyunjin with a fierce expression.

Something shivered in the air, something volatile and threatening, and Felix whined uncertainly. What was going on? Was Minho cross at Hyunjin? Why? Hyunjin was only helping Felix.

‘Hey, no, it’s alright, Felix,’ Hyunjin reassured, and oh wow, if his voice had been guttural _before_... ‘Minho isn’t angry; he’s just making sure I’m not...’ He swallowed thickly, glancing up at the steadily reddening moon.

Quiet footsteps padded towards them, Minho joining them at the pool’s edge.

‘The blood moon makes us all a little wild,’ he said obliquely, brilliant eyes flicking down to meet Felix’s for a moment before twining his hand through Hyunjin’s dark hair and tugging his head back none too gently. ‘Some of us more so than others,’ Minho growled, and he nipped Hyunjin’s lower lip sharply.

Hyunjin snarled in response but the sound wasn’t aggressive, heavy with another kind of heat that stoked the barely dampened flames in Felix’s gut. He panted, desperately needy in more ways than he could articulate.

‘Sorry, little one, were we ignoring you?’ Hyunjin asked, lilting. ‘I bet you’re still hungry, hmm?’

 _Yes_. Felix practically felt hollow, a thin layer of skin and scales stretched tight around a seething mass of _hunger_.

‘Well, that’s no good,’ Hyunjin murmured, and he ripped another mouthful of dripping flesh from the human, chewing it well and feeding it to Felix, who hummed contentedly.

Before Felix could ask for more, Minho rejoined them, having dragged over his own kill so it was within reach. He disrobed and slipped into the steaming water on Felix’s other side, his surface skin coming to the fore in a shimmer of dark red, and breathing very quickly became a struggle once more. Minho radiated heat like he’d drunk blood of the earth instead of human blood and, caught between the magma sirens, Felix’s head spun, his senses clouded with _heady-sharp-safe_. His lashes fluttered down as the fire in his belly scorched his bones, searing him from the crown of his skull to the tips of his flukes –

‘Oh, sweetheart,’ Minho purred, lips brushing his ear, and when had Felix dropped his head to Minho’s shoulder? ‘You’re not just hungry for _food_ , are you?’

Felix didn’t know _what_ he was hungry for. The blood and meat were delicious, satisfying the ache in his teeth, but there was _something more_ , something he couldn’t quite reach, something that was burning him up from the inside out. He squeezed his eyes shut and clung to Minho’s biceps, a needy little noise escaping him, a request for something, _something_ –

Hyunjin pressed himself flush against his back and Felix wailed, high and broken, trying to arch both into the contact and away from it, but Hyunjin had his hands on Felix’s hips, keeping him in place. Minho shifted nearer, water sloshing between them as he caged Felix in so closely that every breath he took brushed their chests together. Felix had no idea whose tail was wrapped around his but it was smooth and silky and the pressure was absolute _torture-perfection_ and he dug his nails into Minho’s skin _hard_ , breath coming in short little gasps.

‘Do you like that, hmm?’ Minho’s hand in his hair, tugging his head back despite Felix’s mewl of protest. ‘Does that feel good, sweetheart?’

Felix couldn’t even formulate a coherent thought, much less a verbal response, his tongue heavy and useless in his mouth, but then there were sharp teeth tweaking the tip of his ear and he moaned, heat flushing his body so hard he shivered.

‘Use your words, little one,’ Hyunjin crooned, his thumbs stroking over Felix’s hipbones in maddening circles. ‘Come on, I know you can do it.’

With a monumental effort, Felix managed to coax his voice into working, rasping, ‘Yes.’ He didn’t remember what the question was, it didn’t matter, all that mattered was that they never stop touching him, never, never, never – _‘Yes.’_

A breath of soft laughter over his mouth, Minho’s lips skimming his jaw. ‘So sensitive,’ he sighed. ‘So worked up, and it’s all for us, isn’t it? You wouldn’t bare your throat for just anyone, would you, Felix?’

Soft lips brushed the side of Felix’s neck and the whine that poured out of him hitched and wavered, his flukes twitching beneath the water. Minho’s words didn’t make complete sense to the very small rational corner of his brain – who else _was_ there for Felix to do anything like this with? – but that part was drowned out by the clamouring of near-feral instincts. _Never,_ they screamed. _No-one else, only them_. Felix conveyed the sentiment as best he could, pressing himself against Hyunjin’s front, his head tipping so far back it touched Hyunjin’s broad shoulder, and clinging to Minho with renewed ferocity, his nails threatening to break skin. Hyunjin’s chest rumbled against his back, the magma siren chuckling, and the sensation rippled another shiver down Felix’s spine. He murmured something that Felix didn’t hear over the sudden rushing in his ears as Minho scraped his teeth, so very sharp, over Felix’s throat, and he panted, pulse pounding with adrenaline and hunger and _want_.

‘You’re doing so well,’ Hyunjin praised quietly, his tone thick with a heat that sparked against the ravenous flames engulfing Felix. ‘Look at you, you’re beautiful. Let us take care of you, hmm? Show us how good you feel.’

‘Please,’ Felix begged, releasing one of Minho’s arms to curve his hand around Hyunjin’s nape, gripping sweat-damp hair and oddly rough skin tight and holding them both as close as he could. A tantalising pressure built low in his belly and he squirmed. ‘Please, Minho, Hyunjin – _please –’_

The tail around Felix’s own constricted as Minho bit down on his neck and he gasped, every nerve sparking under his skin.

Hyunjin growled, _‘Now_ , little one,’ and the coiled tension exploded up Felix’s spine like a bolt of lightning.

A hoarse cry ripped free of Felix as he arched like a bow, shuddering and quaking and _burning_ as the fire devoured him. It wrung him out and left him limp and pliant between the sirens who cradled him, tingling all over. He hissed in unexpected sensitivity when the tail around his unwound, hips shifting in a moment of discomfort that was swiftly forgotten, familiar honey-smooth voices soothing him. Their words were lost on Felix, his ears filled with a faint ringing sound, but their touches were gentle and their scents so very comforting that he found himself relaxing anyway.

The passage of time seemed to blur after that, as though it was all one extended moment that dragged on and on. Felix clung to whoever was nearest to him, letting them guide his movements through the hot water while he nuzzled close, inhaling great lungfuls of _heady-rich-sharp-safe_. He was vaguely aware of the ceaseless purr he was producing, rumbling in sync with Hyunjin’s and Minho’s.

Overhead, the moon shone red and the sirens continued their feast. Felix was fed mouth-to-mouth until his stomach could hold no more, soft tongues licking his face clean when blood spilled past his lips and dripped down his chin. The deeply satisfying food left him feeling warm and heavy and soporific. He wanted nothing more than to curl up in one of the submerged caves and sink into a deep sleep but the thought of doing so alone, of leaving Minho and Hyunjin up here made his skin crawl, flukes stirring in mild agitation.

‘What are you pouting about, hmm?’ Minho asked, husky voice vibrating through Felix’s back and his arm curled firmly across Felix’s chest.

‘Tired,’ Felix groused, pressing his cheek to Minho’s upper arm, only the noise that emerged from his mouth could not be defined as a _word_. It was like the underwater language they’d briefly communicated in the other day, the muted warble in the back of his throat conveying _tired-rest-sleep._

Minho hummed in understanding as the water around them sloshed, Hyunjin coming closer with a breathy laugh. Felix’s eyes were at half-mast and he shivered pleasantly at how beautiful, how dangerous, how alluring Hyunjin looked, the merest whisper of heat flickering to life low in his belly. He must have given it away, however, because Minho flicked his tail fins at Hyunjin, making him sputter in affront.

‘Stop looking at him like that,’ Minho rumbled, unaggressive but unyielding, hugging Felix tighter. ‘We’re having no more of that tonight. There’s been enough excitement already, hasn’t there, sweetheart?’

Felix felt only very mildly disappointed and he really did want to rest, so he didn’t dispute Minho’s words. He did, however, curl the end of his tail around Hyunjin’s, the craving for contact a constant pulse under his skin.

‘Are you ready to have a sleep, little one?’ Hyunjin crooned, letting himself be coaxed closer and skimming the back of his hand down the side of Felix’s face.

Yes, Felix definitely was, but he whined, distress pricking sharply at his scales. If they made him go alone, he wouldn’t sleep, not yet. The idea of staying awake much longer was extremely unappealing but he _would_ do it if he needed to. Felix tried to enunciate his indecision, although the _lonely-needy-touch-hungry_ sound he made was a fair bit more vulnerable than he meant it to be.

‘You thought we were going to leave you? Is that it?’ Minho’s tone was faintly incredulous.

Felix simply firmed his grip on both of them in response.

His purr catching on an amused snort, Hyunjin assured, ‘We’re not going anywhere, Felix. We promised to take care of you tonight.’

Oh. Somehow, Felix hadn’t considered that as a possibility but now he relaxed, his own purr growing in volume again.

It turned out that between the three of them, the sirens had picked the humans clean of all the parts that held any interest. Scavengers would come and take their pickings when the sirens departed, which Hyunjin and Minho were just as ready to do as Felix. So they all disappeared under the steaming surface of the spring, the murky light tinted red by the fully eclipsed moon, and retreated into one of the caves. It was a tight fit with three bodies, fins and scales and arms everywhere, but no-one seemed to mind the enforced proximity.

Thus, Felix drifted off to sleep twined between the two magma sirens, every part of him thrumming with deep-rooted content and sweet happiness, the likes of which he couldn’t recall having experienced ever before.

* * *

The next couple of days were simultaneously the most wonderful and the most frustrating of Felix’s life. Hyunjin and Minho visited him as often as they could, which usually lasted for several hours, and he treasured every moment of their time together. Initially, Felix had thought the effects of his maturation, put into motion by the Blood Moon Feast, would be immediately obvious but that quickly turned out to not be the case. The only identifiable consequence was an increase in his already strong desire to keep the magma sirens close by at all times, his whole body thrumming with delight when they were with him.

The flip side, unfortunately, was that his distress at being left behind also grew. When Hyunjin and Minho had to leave the springs in the pale light of the early morning following the eclipse, Felix was shocked by the intensity of his negative response, instincts urging to him to snarl and bite and pin. It took a considerable amount of self-control not to give in and he spent the rest of the day sulking and scowling, swimming increasingly erratic laps around the pool and snapping his teeth at low-flying birds.

But at last the day dawned that the festival would leave the island and Felix was so excited that he had to talk himself out of manifesting legs several times. Both magma sirens had been very serious about making him promise to stay by the pools until they came for him so, for them, he was good.

The sun was high in the sky and shining fiercely without a cloud in sight when the familiar scent of _sharp-heady-safe_ snaked out from the trees through the curls of steam to Felix. He didn’t have time to think, instinct taking over as he launched himself at the bank with a flick of his tail. Minho emerged out of the dappled shadows into the sunlight a moment later, Hyunjin a step behind him, and they both grinned at the sight of Felix.

‘You ready to meet the sea?’ Hyunjin called, allowing gravity to pull him into a loping run down the slight slope to the water’s edge. He crouched and raised a hand towards Felix, who butted his head against it immediately.

‘Yes,’ Felix replied enthusiastically, his flukes swishing happily when Hyunjin ran his hand through Felix’s hair in a firm caress. ‘It’s safe, then? You won’t get in trouble?’ His glanced to Minho, including him in the questions.

Sitting on the pool’s lip so he could languidly kick his feet back and forth through the water, Minho shook his head. ‘The festival has moved and all the sirens who aren’t following it to the next island have gone home, probably for a good long rest.’

Hyunjin laughed, absently massaging Felix’s nape with strong fingers. ‘We won’t see any of them for a couple of weeks at least.’

Slightly concerned despite the purr rumbling very quietly in his chest, Felix’s brow furrowed and he asked, ‘Has the festival been very tiring? Do _you_ two need to rest?’

‘No, we’ll be fine,’ Hyunjin countered at once, but Felix wasn’t convinced.

‘Don’t lie to me if you need –’

‘We’re not lying, Felix,’ Minho interrupted, nudging Felix’s tail with his toes in gentle reprimand. Leaning back on his hands, he continued, ‘We were a lot less... active than the others this time.’

‘Because we were with you,’ Hyunjin interjected, and Minho nodded.

‘Oh.’ Felix couldn’t quite keep the pout out of his voice or off his face. ‘I made you miss out on things, didn’t I.’ He hadn’t _meant_ to. He’d just wanted to spend more time with them.

‘Er.’ Hyunjin exchanged an undecipherable look with Minho, his hand falling away from Felix with a final stroke of his thumb.

‘What?’ Felix demanded, eyes narrowing. ‘What am I not understanding?’

Minho pursed his lips like he was trying not to laugh, pointedly turning his attention away from Hyunjin to Felix. ‘There are some rituals among our kinds during the festival that are rather physical in a... hands-on sort of way. Hyunjin and I chose not to participate in them as much because we wanted to see you instead.’ He prodded Felix’s tail again. ‘Don’t feel guilty about it.’

Felix was certain there was a subtext here that he was missing out on, not least because of the humour dancing in Minho’s eyes and Hyunjin’s very obvious caginess, but he trusted them not to lie to him.

‘Alright,’ he said easily. ‘Then – can we go now?’

Minho’s eyes curved sweetly as he smiled at Felix’s eagerness. ‘Of course.’

Hyunjin moved back from the edge and patted the ground. ‘Come on up and bring out your human skin.’

Bracing himself on the bank, Felix heaved himself out of the water, little rivers of droplets sliding away over his scales as he sat on the hard-packed earth. He wasn’t entirely sure how he’d managed to exchange his tail for legs last time, so he simply stared at his soft grey tail and imagined a pair of human legs. He imagined that they would be smooth and golden-brown, with defined joints in the middle and near the ends, allowing him to bend them to walk and run and –

The air rippled and his tail was gone, leaving two familiar legs in its place. Felix’s breath caught in wonder, not yet used to being able to do this. He brushed tentative fingers over his thighs and shivered at the sensation despite the heat of the water and the sun.

‘There you go.’ Minho’s voice had the slightest hint of a rasp to it, something that dragged up memories from the Blood Moon Feast, fever-bright and intoxicating. ‘Can you stand up?’

Felix wet his lips with tongue, his mouth strangely dry. ‘I fell over a lot last time. Can – will you help me?’

Wordlessly, Hyunjin and Minho each took one of his hands and between the three of them, they managed to get him upright without anyone toppling into the water. Felix wiggled his toes a bit, taking his time getting used to the balancing act of standing on human legs again. When he felt confident, he released the supporting hands in his and tried taking a step forward.

The operative word being _tried_ – Felix lost his balance at once, yelping as he tipped towards the unforgiving ground with an inelegant flailing of assorted limbs. But Hyunjin was quick and he caught Felix, his arms locking tight around Felix’s chest and waist.

‘Careful,’ Hyunjin grunted, bracing their combined weight.

The sudden deluge of contact startled Felix and he took a deep breath to regain the one he’d lost, only that turned out to be a mistake too. His instincts shrieked in delight at the lungful of delicious scent and his grip on Hyunjin’s arm tightened automatically. Hyunjin went very still and Felix could tell the exact moment that the tension in Hyunjin’s body changed.

Minho cleared his throat and the heavy atmosphere cracked, pressure leaking out, and he pulled Felix away from Hyunjin a little brusquely. ‘Try again, Felix,’ he said, the husky quality gone from his tone. ‘It will take some practise for walking to come easily.’

He helped Felix stand up straight before releasing him with almost undue haste, as though Felix’s skin burned to touch. Felix swallowed hard and didn’t look at either siren as he tried again, stretching his hands out for balance and beating back the whisper of confused hurt threatening to sour his mood. He nearly went down on the third step but despite Minho’s strange behaviour, they both stayed close enough for Felix to latch onto briefly as he steadied himself. The inauspicious start notwithstanding, it didn’t take long for him to get the hang of walking again. Felix got the feeling that his legs remembered more about this than he did, which made sense, since they were designed for this sort of thing.

‘You’re a natural,’ Hyunjin declared, smiling proudly as Felix successfully bent into a slight crouch and rose again without falling.

Felix grinned, pleased with the response.

‘Very good. One last thing before we go,’ Minho said, shrugging out of the long open-fronted garb he wore over the top of another layer. ‘In case we come across any humans, you need camouflage.’

He offered the loose piece of dark blue fabric to Felix, who accepted it tentatively. It was soft to touch and lightweight and fortunately not hard to figure out. Felix slipped his arms through the sleeves as he’d seen Minho do, nose wrinkling at the unfamiliar sensation of the material settling over his skin. The ends skimmed his elbows and calves, a faint but persistent irritation.

‘How does it feel?’ Minho asked, reaching for a paler sash which hung around the waist and tying the ends together, drawing the robe closed around Felix’s body.

‘Weird,’ Felix admitted.

Hyunjin laughed, not unkindly, and leaned against Minho’s shoulder as he inspected the finished result, one arm slipping around Minho’s waist. ‘You’ll get used to it,’ he promised. ‘Won’t be long before you forget it’s even there.’

‘Hmm,’ was all Felix said, not entirely convinced.

Hyunjin and Minho led Felix away from the springs and into the trees, but they didn’t go towards the human settlement this time and the slope here was steeper, more difficult to traverse. Felix stumbled more often than not but with a firm hand in his at all times, he managed not to hurt himself. The journey was slow and it didn’t take very long before Felix started feeling frustrated, longing for the ease of motion that came with being in the water with his tail. He envied the grace and stability that the others managed to maintain while he wobbled and tripped his way down the hill.

Then the wind changed and Felix caught a lungful of a new smell, one he didn’t know, and he stopped abruptly, nostrils flared wide and lips parted as he tried to identify it. Minho and Hyunjin halted with him but didn’t say anything as Felix inhaled long and slow. The scent was crisp and sharp and pervasive and... salty?

‘What’s that smell?’ he asked.

‘The sea,’ Minho replied.

Faint memories of blue-grey as far as the eye could see filled Felix’s mind and he swallowed convulsively. His frustration melted away at once, replaced with a gut-deep sense of anticipation. Keeping his attention fixed on his feet, Felix started walking again, his grip on Hyunjin’s hand perhaps just a little tighter.

Shortly after that, the ground began to change. The slope flattened out and soft, dark earth with all manner of colourful plants springing from it gave way to something coarse and pale and damp. The unfamiliar substrate was granular, shifting beneath Felix’s weight in a very unhelpful manner. Fewer plants grew here and the trees were rapidly thinning out – when he chanced a glance up, he glimpsed a swathe of distant blue that glittered under the sun as the sky did not. Instinct murmured in the back of Felix’s head and his scales seemed to press up against the underside of his skin in response. By the time the last of the trees were behind him, the ground was completely covered in thousands and thousands of tiny granules, these ones dry and, seemingly as a result, silkier and much lighter in colour. Low rolling hills of the stuff stretched out in front of them, a final barrier between them and the ocean.

Pausing at the foot of one of the mounds, Felix glanced at the others and asked, ‘What’s this? Why is there so much of it?’

Hyunjin offered a lopsided smile, squeezing Felix’s hand. ‘This is sand. It’s what lies at the bottom of the sea and usually around the edge of it, too.’

‘Sometimes there are other things around it,’ Minho added, ‘like mud or stones, but yes, it’s often just sand.’

Felix was going to have to cross this stuff every time he wanted to get to the sea? Well, at least it would make for good practise balancing on these infuriatingly unstable legs of his.

‘I prefer earth,’ he admitted, eyeing the rolling sand hills with apprehension.

‘You’ll get used to it,’ Minho reassured him, sounding mildly amused as he reached out for Felix’s other hand.

Climbing up one of the sand hills was every bit as treacherously difficult as it looked and when they reached the top, Felix was growling low in his throat and red-faced from exertion, the muscles in his thighs burning. Did he _really_ need to visit the ocean so badly? If he had to go through this nightmarish trial _every single time –_

A gust of wind brushed past, filling his nose and mouth with the taste-scent of the sea. The sun shone down fiercely, giving the sand an eye-wateringly bright glow, and under the whistling wind, the sway of the trees, and the cries of the birds, there was a new sound. It was a quiet rushing, similar to the wind except that there was a rhythm to it, every rush followed by a soft hissing noise, looping again and again.

He squinted against the sun and the sand and he saw _blue_. A shining blanket of blue that stretched on and on until it met the edge of the sky. The strange noises were from where the sand gave way to the sea, little waves rolling in and collapsing in a burst of white froth before retreating back into blue, blue, blue.

Felix was hit with a punch of sheer longing straight to the gut, so strong it was all he could do not to crumple in on himself, and he shivered, every single part of him thrumming with visceral urgency. There was no awareness of anything around him – the whole world might’ve vanished in an instant and Felix wouldn’t notice, wouldn’t _care_. Not now. Not _now_. Not when it had been _so long._

Dragged forward as though by an invisible force that crooned sweetly in his ears, Felix stumbled down the sandy slope, no amount of skidding and wobbling enough to distract him. Not for so much as one moment did his wide-eyed gaze shift from the promise of the sea, its entreating whispers twining around him with deceptive gentleness as it coaxed him onwards. The soft murmuring sounded like something Felix had forgotten a very long time ago, something he’d been unconsciously missing, something called –

_Danger._

Felix stopped in place so suddenly he nearly tipped face first into the wet sand. Cold water washed over his feet and a full-body shudder wracked him as the screeching need to dive in smashed up against the panicked wail of instincts crying _danger-unsafe-hide-DANGER_. Barely able to breathe past the competing urges but desperate beyond all reason to get his scales in the sea, Felix forced himself forward another step only to have control over his limbs wrenched from him, an icy sweat breaking out across the backs of his shoulders and neck.

He couldn’t move. He physically _could not_ convince his body to go on. Nor could he step back, his stiff muscles tightening to the point of pain. Felix’s pulse, previously tripping in excitement, now raced in terror, certain that something awful was about to happen. He tried to turn, to call out, but nothing was _working_ – he was _stuck_ – he _couldn’t escape –_

‘Felix? What’s wrong?’

Minho’s voice was sharp with concern but all Felix managed in return was a scared little sound that scraped his throat raw on the way up, squeezing out between tightly clenched teeth. But Minho meant _safety_ , he knew this, he was sure of it, so Felix tore his attention from the vast ocean and caught Minho’s dark gaze, begging for help without words.

Minho blanched. ‘Are you – I’m going to touch you now, alright?’

He waited only for Felix to dip his chin in a jerky nod before stepping in close and curling a small hand around Felix’s nape, the hold firm and immediately comforting. Felix found himself leaning into the protective circle of Minho’s arms at once, though his focus skittered back to the water.

‘Look at me, Felix,’ Minho said, quiet and controlled. ‘You’re safe. Nothing is going to hurt you. Do you understand?’

The compulsion to obey prickled under Felix’s skin and he gave into it, dragging his gaze back to Minho’s, crimson tinging his irises. The relief was short-lived, however, Felix’s instincts snarling at him to look towards the water or he wouldn’t be able to see the threat, wouldn’t be able to flee before it reached him, and his hands trembled, breath straining.

Minho’s fingers dug into Felix’s skin, his stare intent. ‘Follow my breaths, Felix,’ he ordered. ‘I need you to do that for me, okay? There’s no danger, I promise you’re safe.’

Felix tried, he really did, but his body wasn’t listening to him and he couldn’t think. Why was he so scared? Why was this _happening?_ He wavered, light-headed with the lack of air and panic spiked.

‘Hey, hey, gently does it, sweetheart, you’re alright.’ Hyunjin’s voice, smooth and familiar, right behind him. ‘Let me help you, hmm?’

Hyunjin was safe, like Minho. Felix knew this, their scents warm and reassuring around him, and he made an affirmative noise. At once, the solid heat of Hyunjin’s chest aligned against his back, bracketing Felix between the magma sirens. His muscles spasmed with a convulsive shiver, the immediate sense of security battling Felix’s unfounded terror.

‘There we go,’ Hyunjin murmured, taking one of Felix’s hands and pressing it to Minho’s chest, over his steady heartbeat. ‘Long, deep breaths now, can you do that, Felix? In – two – three – four – out – two – three – four, just like that.’

It was a little easier with them both around him, Hyunjin talking over the quiet rush of the waves, but the water continued to wash back and forth over Felix’s feet in a constant reminder that he wasn’t _safe_ , that he was in _danger_. His head twitched to the side, struggling to turn against the force of Minho’s grip on his nape, and dread prickled down Felix’s spine at the sight of the calm sea, ruining his efforts at breathing properly.

‘Would it help if Hyunjin covered your eyes?’ Minho asked, his hand curled over Felix’s. ‘Do you want him to do that, Felix?’

 _Yes_ , Felix tried to say and they understood anyway.

A moment later, the cool shadow of Hyunjin’s hand spread across his vision, the slight weight on his skin an anchor that tethered him to _here-and-now_ instead of _out-there-and-long-ago_. Felix didn’t know how it had come to be, but the taste of danger rose from deep within him, piercing and sharp and so, so real. He barely noticed the tears that slid down his cheeks till they pooled at the edge of Hyunjin’s hand, slowly seeping underneath. _They_ noticed, though, Minho’s thumb stroking his nape, Hyunjin’s arm wrapping firmly around Felix’s waist, the tang of their protectiveness as sharp in his nose as the salt of the sea.

When the terror was no longer a pounding beat beneath his skin, receding enough that he could follow Minho’s rhythmic breathing, Felix’s knees gave out on a sudden surge of exhaustion. Tucked between the others as he was, however, there was no danger of him hitting the ground, and in a rush of movement Felix found himself scooped up and held close to Hyunjin’s chest.

‘Keep your eyes shut, sweetheart,’ Hyunjin told him, walking away from the water. ‘You’re safe with us.’

Felix curled up smaller, face pressed against the side of Hyunjin’s neck under his curtain of hair, and did as instructed. Minho was no longer touching him but Felix could hear him nearby, never going far. They didn’t walk for long, the whisper of the sea still audible, but Felix focused on the sounds of sand shifting underfoot and Hyunjin’s breathing, steady despite Felix’s weight in his arms. Hyunjin knelt and Felix reluctantly opened his eyes a sliver, relaxing slightly when he realised they were positioned so his back was to the ocean. Felix sat up a bit but stayed nestled in Hyunjin’s lap, idly wondering what the chances were of him being able to convince the others that they should just give up on this ocean business and go back to the pools. Probably rather low.

‘Felix? How are you doing?’

The question was cautious, Minho’s hand on his arm light, but Felix felt like burying his head in his arms and hiding away, a sickly feeling flooding his gut. What was _wrong_ with him?

‘What’s wrong with me?’ he mumbled aloud, fingertips whitening as he pressed them into the blue cloth covering his thighs. ‘I’m meant to be an ocean siren, aren’t I?’

 _‘Nothing_ is wrong with you,’ Minho countered, tipping Felix’s chin up with insistent fingers. The strength of his conviction was plain to see in his beautiful face, his brow furrowed against the very idea.

‘And you _are_ an ocean siren,’ Hyunjin added, voice rumbling through Felix’s back. ‘You’ve been away from the sea for a very long time, Felix, much longer than is healthy. We don’t know what the circumstances were around your move to the hot springs but...’

He hesitated and Minho continued, calm and implacable, ‘But they’re unlikely to have been kind. You may not remember what happened, little one, but it’s possible that your body does.’

Despite the heat of Hyunjin’s embrace and the blazing sun, a biting chill had invaded Felix’s core. Minho’s words made sense but that didn’t mean he had to like them. How was he meant to become a _proper_ siren if he couldn’t even get far enough into the sea to bring out his true skin?

Felix dropped his head back onto Hyunjin’s shoulder. ‘Can we go back to the springs? I don’t want to do this anymore.’

Hyunjin tensed and Minho sighed deeply, apology lacing his every word as he said, ‘I wish we could say yes, Felix, I really do, but we can’t.’

Unsurprising, but worth a try.

The sickly feeling unfurled at the thought of having to face the ocean again and Felix struggled to keep the tremor out of his voice as he asked, ‘Why not?’

‘Your maturation process has begun,’ Hyunjin replied, placating and aggravatingly reasonable. ‘There’s only so long before your body _needs_ to return to the sea and you won’t be able to fight it when that time comes. Better to start getting used to it now when we can go slowly, no?’

Felix stiffened in Hyunjin’s lap, petty anger born of pure frustration flaring up inside him. ‘I was fine before,’ he snapped, twisting around to glare at Hyunjin. ‘I didn’t need to start the maturation process, I _shouldn’t_ have, then none of this would’ve happened.’

‘That’s not true,’ Hyunjin retorted, eyes narrowing. ‘Your body was already trying to force you into the process – how else do you think you could smell the humans from halfway across the island? If we hadn’t helped you through it, you’d have gone feral at some point and probably been caught.’

‘I would not!’ Felix shot back petulantly, more than happy to be irritable and contrary if it meant he stopped feeling scared and ashamed. ‘I managed fine before you two, didn’t I?’

‘And how well were you managing when you called those three humans up to the pools?’ Hyunjin asked ruthlessly. ‘What would you have done if Minho and I hadn’t shown up, hmm?’

Felix inhaled to snap a reply but when he opened his mouth, nothing came out. He tried to think of something to counter Hyunjin’s words with but they all knew the truth and he couldn’t bring himself to lie. Felix had been in serious trouble when the magma sirens arrived, having lost any control over the humans. He’d been intimidated, horribly so.

‘The hot springs were enough to sustain your juvenile body,’ Minho said and Felix turned back to face him, ‘but you _are_ an ocean siren. Salt water is your true home.’

‘You don’t know anything about my home,’ Felix countered defensively. The only place he could remember well enough to be considered as _home_ was the springs, but it took him barely a second to realise he’d never actually thought of them as such. _Home_ was such a vague, elusive concept.

‘Alright,’ Minho conceded, ‘but I _do_ know that you won’t be able to stay up in those pools forever. Neither I nor Hyunjin are going to force you into the water, Felix, but we _will_ be here to walk alongside you every step of the way. Please, rely on us to keep you safe until you can do it yourself.’

Felix sighed heavily, looking down at his hands again. It didn’t seem fair that he should want to jump right into the sea and yet be so frightened of it. Even now, if he let his focus drift for just a moment, the urge to run for the water coiled in his bones and his scales itched for freedom. Something in him ached for the feeling of all that blue engulfing him, ached like an old wound that had never quite healed. Why couldn’t he just give in to it? Why did it have to be so _difficult?_

Perhaps sensing his incipient capitulation, Hyunjin squeezed Felix’s waist in gentle reassurance. ‘We’ll take it as slow as you like, okay? You don’t even have to change skin if you don’t want, we can stop at the edge of the water.’

Felix gritted his teeth against the unpleasant churning of his stomach. He did _not_ want to do this but even he had to admit that it was going to happen at some point. As Hyunjin had said – better to try again now before the plaintive hunger rattling around inside his ribcage broke free and devoured him whole. Maybe it wouldn’t be so bad if they only went to the very edge, just close enough that he could feel the cool touch of the sea again.

So Felix said, ‘Alright. We can try again.’

‘Thank you,’ Minho replied, earnestly. ‘For trusting us and for being brave. I know you’d much rather not do this.’

He certainly wasn’t wrong about that, but Felix made no comment, simply allowing Hyunjin to help him back to his feet and taking a moment to find his balance on the sand. Then he squared his shoulders, trying to focus on the deep longing he felt instead of the skittering fear, and turned around. The shimmering blanket of blue filled his line of sight and his pulse stuttered at once, breath hitching in his chest. Before he could spin into a full-blown panic again, he reached out blindly, fumbling until his hands closed around one of Hyunjin’s and one of Minho’s. Their grips were firm and Felix steadied slightly as he stared out at the ocean.

‘Don’t let go,’ he rasped, his throat tight.

‘Never,’ Hyunjin swore.

‘Nothing in that water will harm you while we’re with you,’ Minho promised, his tone unbending steel.

Holding their words close to his heart, Felix walked slowly over the sand to the sea, Minho and Hyunjin close enough that their joined hands bumped into each other’s thighs. He paused briefly at the edge of the wet sand, curling his toes in the dry, silky grains. But the whispering call of the water was strong and when Felix hesitantly stepped over the line, he couldn’t tell whether the faint trembling in his body was as a result of dread or sheer yearning.

‘Talk to us,’ Minho said, as Felix struggled to push himself any further. ‘What are you afraid of?’

‘The water,’ Felix gasped, breath coming heavily. ‘There’s – there’s something in the water. I know there is. It’s dangerous. It – it will catch us if we go out too far.’

As though on cue, both magma sirens drifted closer, their shoulders pressing against him till he was firmly sandwiched between them.

‘Until the water is as deep as your chin, there won’t be anything scarier than sea urchins and small fish,’ Hyunjin said, brushing his thumb over Felix’s knuckles. ‘None of the more dangerous animals swim so close to shore.’

‘And if there are any further out, none of them are a danger to you,’ Minho added with certainty. ‘Not even a hungry tiger shark would attack three full-grown sirens.’

Felix believed them but he was still scared. The things they were talking about, the creatures that lived in the ocean, they weren’t worrying him. He had no idea what a tiger shark was but he knew it wasn’t the cause of his howling instincts. It was something _else_ , something _other_ , something that _did not belong_ , something that _should not have been there –_

‘There are no humans out there, Felix.’

He froze. The shrieking in his head fell silent, everything inside him sitting up and paying attention.

‘The islanders stay away from this area,’ Hyunjin continued carefully, ‘and the tourists are kept to a very limited space on the other side of the island.’

Felix glanced at Hyunjin, wide-eyed. ‘But – they could break the rules, what if –’

‘They can’t,’ Minho interrupted. ‘All of these islands have been protected ever since the atrocity with the tourists and the family of ocean sirens. The islanders keep any newcomers under close watch and so do we.’ He cupped Felix’s jaw with one hand, the intensity of his dark eyes a reassuring weight across Felix’s shoulders. ‘There are _no_ humans out there.’

Some part of Felix that he didn’t recognise but which had been screaming itself hoarse in warning, in remembered fear, lunged to the fore and latched onto Hyunjin and Minho’s words with visceral desperation.

‘Are you sure?’ The words were torn out him. ‘Are you _sure?’_

 _‘Yes,’_ Minho said firmly. ‘And if one of them managed to sneak in somehow, we’d catch their scent and hear them long before they found us. Humans are bad at hiding themselves on land and much worse at it in the water. They drown easily so they rarely go far from the surface, which makes them effortless to find.’

And that terrified part of Felix, tangled in a furious knot in his gut, relaxed a fraction. He trusted Minho and Hyunjin to keep him safe. Their senses were keen and they knew much more about humans than he did so... _perhaps_... he could trust them on this too.

Turning back to the glittering blue that sprawled from here to the horizon, Felix dared walk forward a little further, halting when a small wave broke and washed over his feet. The bite of cold was as sharp as last time, but though it made his chest squeeze unpleasantly, he was still clear-headed enough to feel the thrum of excitement below the fear. Not loosening his hold on Hyunjin and Minho’s hands, Felix cautiously continued on until the clear water lapped at his calves, the rolling waves brushing past his knees. The hem of the robe he wore was sodden and it stuck to him most annoyingly, clinging like an unwanted second skin.

All at once, Felix had had enough of wearing it. He needed to get rid of it and he _needed_ to bring out his scales. It was abruptly the most crucial thing, a matter of life and death, and he didn’t pause to explain himself before letting go of the magma sirens’ hands, tearing at the loosely knotted sash and shrugging out of the robe. Hyunjin made a confused noise and Minho hushed him as he caught the clothing before the water could swallow it, but Felix wasn’t focused on them. They were there and they were keeping him safe and that was all he required from them.

Now, it was just him and the sea, its whispers coiling around him, pressing against him. With a limited modicum of grace, Felix sat, hissing in shock as the water splashed up and the cold washed over him, sudden after the baking heat of the sun. But the sand was smooth under his skin, the water flowing about him in a gentle rhythm, and it was the easiest thing he’d ever done to tuck away the human skin he wore and call forth his scales and fins. No sooner was the change complete and Felix exhaled sharply, digging his fingers into the soft sand, his flukes waving in the current.

The sensation was _perfect_. It was all that he’d ever wanted, all he’d ever needed, even without knowing it. Half of Felix sighed in sheer bliss while the other half crowed in triumph. The others were right, which really shouldn’t have surprised him – his body had _missed this_ , missed it for so long, and not even the rumble of _danger-unsafe-hide-escape_ in the back of his head could cover that.

He dragged his hand through the clear water, watching it gather and crest in a tiny wave over the curve of his thumb. If he didn’t look out towards the horizon, focusing only on his immediate surroundings, the prickle of worry was much easier to ignore and that gave Felix the mental space to think and consider. Any doubts he’d had about the necessity of the ocean in his life had been obliterated the moment his scales emerged. The hunger in him was even more deeply entrenched than he’d realised. And he wanted to satiate it. He _wanted_ to go out further, to submerge himself and roam the ocean’s depths. He didn’t want to be scared of this beautiful world on the edge of which he sat.

And that meant Felix was going to have to keep being brave.

Chancing a glance up to let his attention drift further out, he shivered, fins twitching anxiously. Yes, he would need to gather all of his courage and wrap himself in it if he were to conquer this fear of his. Felix wasn’t sure he could do it alone – just the thought of swimming much deeper threatened to crush his lungs and derail his breathing. But Hyunjin and Minho stood less than an arm’s length behind him and Felix forced himself to inhale deeply, concentrating on the comfort of their scent and dropping his gaze to the water around him.

Minho had said that they would keep him safe until he could do it himself, so Felix supposed he _wouldn’t_ be alone. That was good. He didn’t want to be alone ever again. For now, though, he was ready to return to the springs and relax somewhere he _knew_ to be safe, where his instincts wouldn’t be thrumming in agitation. His earlier panic had demanded a steep price from him and he wanted to nap in the security of the underwater caves.

 _That’s enough being brave for today,_ Felix thought, closing his eyes and bringing his human skin to the surface. Carefully getting to his feet, he turned to the others, who watched him, quiet and intent. ‘I’m ready to go back now,’ he declared, subdued but not quite asking for permission.

A bright smile unfurled across Hyunjin’s face and he drew Felix into a one-armed hug. ‘I’m proud of you, Felix.’

‘Very well done,’ Minho murmured, eyes twinkling and expression soft.

He brushed the backs of his fingers down Felix’s cheek and said nothing more, but he didn’t need to. Felix felt the corner of his mouth turn up slightly and he relaxed more of his weight against Hyunjin’s side, a thin strand of warmth coiling behind his sternum and gentling the ragged edge of his anxiousness.

Felix could do this. He _would_ do this. He was an ocean siren, after all. Or, at the very least, he would be one soon.

* * *

_(‘So, that went well.’_

_‘Didn’t it just.’_

_‘Storms, I knew it’d probably be difficult for him, but that? That, I did not see coming.’_

_‘How could we have known? What worries me was his reaction to your mention of humans. That wasn’t based on any_ recent _experience with them.’_

_‘Mmm... We’re gonna have our work cut out for us getting him ready to join an ocean frenzy before the seasons turn.’_

_‘We’ve got a while to go, so don’t worry yet. And you saw how determined he was. I thought we’d be lucky to get him to even_ look _at the water again after his panic attack, never mind_ sitting _in it. He wants this, even though he’s scared.’_

 _‘Thank the stars for that, at least. I don’t know what we’d do if he_ didn’t _want it.’_

_‘Yeah. If I never have to see that look on his face again, it’ll be too soon.’)_

* * *

The night after Felix’s first trip to the ocean, he caught barely a wink of sleep. Every time he tried to rest, his mind falling into a gentle lull, terrifying dreams descended on him with vicious ferocity and he would startle awake, thrashing in the little cavern. Unable to shake off the awful feeling of being trapped, Felix swam to the surface of the spring, floating on his back among the curls of steam and staring vacantly at the glittering night sky. All attempts to doze off were swiftly discarded, the nightmares bubbling up almost as soon as Felix closed his eyes.

The dreams weren’t clear but they were enough to tell him he was in the ocean, huge waves tossing him this way and that. There was blood in the water, so much of it, and he could hear garbled yelling, deafening roars, and other sounds less easily placed but intrinsically horrifying. Throughout it all, beneath the fear and the confusion, Felix was filled with the certainty that this _was not right_ , that _they were not meant to be there_.

Over the next week, the magma sirens visited Felix regularly. Sometimes they accompanied him down to the ocean and sometimes, when he didn’t want to deal with the exhaustion that came after all such excursions, they stayed up at the pools. On those days, they simply played and ate and Hyunjin and Minho told Felix more about their lives. He learned more about relations between the magma and ocean frenzies in the archipelago, although less about his own kind, unsurprisingly. Hyunjin told Felix that he and Minho acted as something of an ambassadorial pair and that when he was ready, they’d introduce him to their counterpart, as that was the ocean siren they had the most to do with.

After those first few days, however, Minho and Hyunjin’s visits became more sparing, dropping to once every two or three days. With their frenzy having recovered from the excitement of the festival, they could no longer spend all their time on the island. Felix was well aware that they had priorities outside of him, he’d always known that, but with a sudden increase to the amount of time he was spending alone, he felt something inside him begin to fray. Add to this his choppy sleeping schedule as a result of the vague, unsettling nightmares which came to him most nights and the stressful jumpiness that always hung around for half a day after each ocean trip, causing Felix to flinch at sudden noises and struggle to relax even in the springs, and it was no wonder that the fraying picked up speed. He’d had a taste of what it was _not_ to be alone and he didn’t like the feeling of that being taken away, not one little bit.

Felix was determined not to let his state of growing unrest show during his time with Hyunjin and Minho, but every time they bid him goodbye and he watched them walk away through the trees, the caustic combination of anger and frustration spiked a little higher inside him. He found himself baring his teeth at their backs, tail thrashing beneath the surface of the pool as he fought to keep himself from climbing out after them.

Then his jaw started aching and his tail began to itch and Felix’s quality of sleep deteriorated further. Some nights were so bad that he was kept awake till dawn, whining at the pain in his teeth and raking his nails over his scales in a frantic bid for a modicum of relief. He wasn’t sure the heat of the water was helping but hauling himself up onto the bank to let his scales cool only aggravated them further, the air feeling unnaturally abrasive.

When Hyunjin and Minho next visited, it had been nearly four days since they left and at least two since Felix got a wink of sleep, having been reduced to gnawing none-too-gently on the lower end of his tail out of sheer desperation. Unsurprisingly, he was in a foul mood and not remotely interested in shifting into his human skin and going down to the ocean. And, distantly aware that such thoughts were in no way rational, Felix felt his hackles rising at how unaffected the magma sirens were. While he was ready to scream from exhaustion, persistent dull pain, and a growing feeling of abandonment, Minho was as confident and collected as ever and Hyunjin’s warm cheeriness knew no bounds.

It was, perhaps, unavoidable that Felix’s temper would finally snap.

‘We can stay for the whole afternoon and night this time,’ Hyunjin announced happily, crouching by the spring’s edge. ‘So we won’t have to hurry back from the sea today.’

Felix was lurking a tail-length or two from the bank, the water up to the bridge of his nose, and he could see the slight confusion in both magma sirens. He wasn’t entirely sure he could reply without snarling so he didn’t say anything, pushing his tongue hard against his aching teeth.

Hyunjin cocked his head, brows drawing together just a fraction. ‘Are you hungry? I was going to catch something for you while we were down at the beach so you could spend more time there.’

‘We can do that bit first, if you want to eat,’ Minho added, a sympathetic softness to his tone and bright eyes.

Instead of soothing Felix, however, it only made him angrier and he could feel his control crack, emotions bleeding into his expression as he lifted his head from the water. Failing to hold back the sharp edge of his frustration, he bit out, ‘I don’t want to go.’

Hyunjin recoiled immediately, like he’d been stung, and Minho froze, stiller than stone.

‘You – don’t want to?’ Hyunjin’s tone was half an octave higher with shock.

‘Did you have another nightmare?’ Minho asked slowly, the corners of his mouth pinched. ‘If you’re scared, we can –’

‘I don’t want to go!’ Felix interrupted, rearing up despite his intention to stay low. The fins on his arms flared out and he nearly whined as his rapid heartbeat made his scales itch terribly with the increased blood flow.

‘What’s wrong?’ Minho’s voice was tight but still so damn controlled. ‘Has something happened?’

His jaw throbbing in time with his pulse, Felix couldn’t hold back a grimace of discomfort, lips curling away from his teeth as agitated instincts hissed and snarled. He didn’t want to listen to Minho, didn’t want to answer him.

 _Push_ , instinct demanded to the rhythm of his breathing, _push him, push them._

So Felix snapped, ‘Nothing’s wrong, I just want to stay here! You can’t make me go.’

Minho’s eyes narrowed, his gaze heavy on Felix’s skin and he tilted forward slightly, like he might jump into the pool to drag Felix out. In unconscious response, Felix leaned away, teeth bared, but it was Hyunjin who replied first.

‘Felix,’ he said, cautious and just barely pleading. ‘Of course we can’t make you go, and we would never try. But... talk to us? Please? If we’ve upset you, then –’

The rest of Hyunjin’s words were drowned out as a crackling growl rumbled in Felix’s chest and before he realised what he was doing, Felix had ripped his nails across his tail hard enough that a couple of scales tore away. His breath stuttered at the combination of sharp pain and visceral relief, cutting off the growl, and a tremor rocked his tightly held body as he resisted the urge to dig his nails in until he’d ripped off every single scale.

Hyunjin’s jaw dropped. _‘Storms.’_

Understanding swept across Minho’s expression and Felix couldn’t find the energy to be mad that he’d lost control in from of them. Instead, he was relieved that apparently _someone_ knew what was going on because he really didn’t and, at this rate, it wouldn’t be long before he _did_ try clawing off his scales.

‘You need to get to the ocean,’ Minho barked. _‘Now.’_

There was something deadly serious about his tone, the intensity about him rivalling the one he’d had when Felix had seen him for the first time. Felix felt himself wilting beneath the weight of Minho’s attention, frustration shoved back in the face of the sudden air of palpable urgency.

‘What’s happening to me?’ Felix asked, the angry part of him loathing how meek he sounded.

Already reaching out a hand to beckon Felix closer, Minho answered briskly, ‘Your adult scales are ready to come through.’

‘Why aren’t they, then? Why is it so _itchy?’_ Felix rambled, allowing himself to drift over to the bank. His human skin unfurled with barely a thought and he accepted the hands that promptly hauled him out of the spring.

‘You’re in the wrong water,’ Hyunjin said, untucking a long patterned green tunic from the sash tied around his waist and beginning to wrangle it over Felix’s head. ‘I don’t know if it’s temperature or salinity or something else but –’

‘But the sea is the only home your body knows,’ Minho interrupted, taking one of Felix’s hands in a firm grip and practically dragging him towards the trees, ‘and this –’ he tossed his head back to the pools – ‘isn’t cutting it.’

There wasn’t much talking after that, Minho and Hyunjin too focused on getting Felix down the hill as fast as possible without sending him tumbling end over end. Felix put up no protest, once again feeling overwhelmed. The awful itchiness that plagued him was significantly muted with his scales hidden away, but it still lingered, a nagging irritation. The strongest sensation Felix had was of being too small and inexperienced to navigate the currents towing him this way and that, even his body turning on him. It left him horribly unsure of himself so he kept his mouth shut as the earth turned to sand beneath his feet and the scent of salt filled his nose.

The sky was cloudy today, the sun hidden behind a sprawl of mottled grey darker than Felix’s scales. A brisk wind whipped in off the sea, whistling between the dunes and dancing through the sirens’ hair, and slashes of white appeared on the deep blue water where waves rose and fell. Felix shivered as he stumbled with moderate grace over the sand, a familiar hunger pounding a heavy beat alongside his heart.

As they reached the flat beyond the dunes, Felix heard Hyunjin begin to speak, probably suggesting he take the tunic off before getting wet, but now that he was here, Felix couldn’t wait another moment. He’d learned to run recently, albeit not very fast, and he put that skill into practice by taking off for the sea. His feet thumped against the sand and his instincts shrieked with excitement as soon as he hit the water, cold droplets splashing onto his legs.

Ankle-deep, Felix came to a stop, an equally familiar wariness rising rapidly inside him, fear a bitter edge to his joy. He hadn’t dealt with anything other than very small waves before and these ones gave him pause, vague memories of once being swallowed up by a tempestuous ocean surfacing in his mind. The waves were a way out, however, and the furthest Felix had dared go so far was up to his knees. Without looking away from the sea, he held a hand out behind him and wasn’t surprised when Hyunjin’s larger one closed around his. Felix could hear them both standing near, remaining back unless he should need them.

The itch under his skin was increasing again, his scales sensing the proximity of the cool water, and Felix sloshed through the shallows. The wind blustered around him and below the choppy surface, currents tugged at his ankles, pulling him further in. He sat abruptly, a little closer to shore than last time, and hardly noticed the green tunic sticking to him as he brought out his true skin with a slosh of displaced water.

Felix barely had time to see his pale grey fins curl into existence before a punch of _relief-finally-true-never-leave_ winded him as it exploded through every fibre of his being. His muscles contracted in a spasm and Felix fell backwards, submerged beneath the skin of the sea without a moment to catch himself. The loss of control was brief but panic speared through him in stark contrast to the blissful relief as he lost all contact with the ground and the swirling currents threatened to drag him out deeper.

Before fear could really sink its teeth into Felix, two pairs of hands plunged into the water and grabbed him, hauling him upright while he sputtered in shock.

‘Felix? Are you alright?’ Hyunjin asked, shrill with alarm, his dark eyes flicking over Felix’s form in search of any injury.

‘What happened? Your whole body jerked and you slipped under,’ Minho added, brows furrowed in concern.

Clinging to them with both hands, Felix took a moment to breathe, staring down at his tail where it swayed gently to the rhythm of the tide. ‘It feels so good,’ he rasped, voice hoarse. ‘It feels _so good.’_

He felt their attention turn to his tail and then, as they all watched, a single scale near his hip dislodged and was swept away in the current. In its place, a droplet of teal stood out amongst the grey.

Reaching out reverently, Felix touched it with one fingertip. The scale was as smooth as the rest but harder, more like a carapace than its semi-rigid predecessor. As he brushed his hand over the whole area, feeling the single point of difference, two other grey scales came free, revealing another pair of rich blue-green scales.

His adult scales were coming through. He was really, truly becoming a proper siren of the ocean and with that understanding, suddenly all the discomfort and frustration he’d suffered so far was worth it. He was _becoming_.

* * *

It had been more days than Felix could count on one hand since Minho and Hyunjin last visited and he was hungry. This shouldn’t’ve been a problem, since Felix was used to feeding himself, whether by digging up young plants or ambushing small animals, but the thought of such fare right now was distinctly unappealing. It wasn’t even fresh fish that he was after. No, Felix’s body craved more nourishing food and as he breathed in the faint, tantalising scent drifting out from the trees deep into his lungs, his mouth _watered_.

He knew exactly what he wanted.

However, on the tail end of that particular thought came the sudden memory of Hyunjin’s words to him at the end of their first meeting – _no more following nice smells, okay?_ Things had changed since then, obviously, but the general message still stood, which meant Felix was meant to stay in the vicinity of the hot springs unless accompanied by Hyunjin or Minho. For his safety, of course.

Felix had to deliberately, consciously uncurl his upper lip at that, as it had flattened against his teeth in an unexpected grimace. His instincts hissed at the implication that he couldn’t take care of himself and the part of Felix that was spending far too much time stewing in a growing sense of abandonment and abrasive anger flexed sharp talons inside his gut, exacerbating the hunger pangs. With a flick of his only-mostly-grey tail, he drifted to the edge of the spring, staring into the forest’s lush depths. The scent seemed to call him, twining itself around him, and Felix dug his nails into the bank, though whether to keep himself in or climb out, he couldn’t say.

 _This could go really, really wrong and you won’t have anyone to rely on if you panic again,_ he tried to reason.

 _I’m not helpless,_ the wild part of him retorted. _I don’t need them to hold my hand for everything._

 _And how did that go_ last _time?_ he demanded of himself.

A low growl rumbled through Felix’s chest, deeper than he’d realised he could go, and this time he didn’t stop the scowl that twisted his mouth. ‘I’m _hungry,’_ he snarled out loud, and with a slosh of displaced water, he hauled himself out of the spring.

He was better at balancing on his human legs now and he didn’t stumble even once on his way from the pools into the dappled shade of the trees. The temperature shift was sudden enough that goosebumps rippled over his bare, wet skin and there were still broken branches and occasional rocks poking up through the soft layer of leaf litter on the uneven ground, but Felix scarcely noticed any of that. None of it mattered. He had the phantom taste of his prey on his tongue and his focus had narrowed to a sharp point. He was hunting and now was not the time for unnecessary thoughts, the worried part of him falling silent.

Drawn down the hill by the delicious scent, Felix was at no point worried about losing his way. The further he went, the stronger the lure was, guiding him along a path he’d walked once before. By the time the trees began to thin out, a familiar ache had started up in his jaw, the need to _eat-consume-devour_ a rhythm pounding through his whole body. Felix fought not to let the dull pain distract him, well aware that he needed to be very alert so close to the settlement. He slowed his pace, creeping from the cover of tree trunk to tree trunk and opening his mouth to taste the air and better pinpoint his quarry. However, the air was thick with the potent smell of _danger-sweat-human-want_ and it clouded his mind, making it all the harder to concentrate.

 _Hunt,_ instincts ordered. _Hunt._

Felix stumbled and had to brace himself against a tree as his head suddenly spun, his wavering balance threatening to tip him over in response to the rush of hunger swarming him. He panted, blinking hard as the patterned bark drifted in and out of focus. What was going on? He _was_ hunting. At this point, his instincts had him so tightly in their grip that he couldn’t have stopped even if –

_Iron-rich-salty-delicious._

Everything stopped. Time froze, the wildlife quietened, the world became as stone.

Except Felix.

He moved with a burst of graceful speed he’d never achieved outside of the water and there was no thought, it simply happened. One moment he was staggering into a tree and the next he was a dozen tail-lengths away, bent in a half crouch, nostrils flared wide as his eyes roamed the area for the source of the smell. It took Felix only a handful of heartbeats to find it and he paused by a tangle of broad-leafed shrubs, scarcely daring to breathe lest he announce his presence.

A human knelt in a small clearing barely three trees away. They were alone and hunched over themself, muttering vehemently under their breath as they cradled one of their hands in the other. Beside them lay a woven basket and a short, sharp implement edged in the same red fluid dripping from their hand.

_Blood._

Felix licked his lips, the heady scent waves making him _burn_ with ferocious need. Every part of him was locked on the promise of that viscous liquid and once again, there was no conscious decision on his part, he just _moved_. Teeth bared in preparation to rend and tear, he launched himself out from behind the mass of greenery and crossed the space to the human in five long, low strides. They barely had time to jerk their head up, eyes wide, before Felix crashed into them and they both went tumbling across the ground. The human’s alarmed cry was cut off as they landed hard on their back, Felix rolling onto his hands and knees above them.

 _‘Siren,’_ they gasped.

Their shock left them defenceless and Felix was so very hungry. With a guttural snarl, he darted down and latched onto their throat, sinking his teeth in deep and ripping out a mouthful of flesh. The human’s whole body convulsed under him, a strangled noise escaping them as their lifeblood pulsed out of them, wave after wave of it drenching themself and Felix and the earth on which they lay. Felix hardly chewed the meat in his mouth before swallowing it, diving in for another bite even as the spark of life faded from the human and their death throes subsided. Hunting instincts bellowed in triumph within him and he might have given voice to the surge of victorious emotion had he not been so preoccupied with his meal.

Any awareness of the rest of the world Felix still maintained fell away as his consciousness sank into a crimson haze. It was just him and the hot blood filling his mouth, him and the intoxicating taste of fresh meat overwhelming his senses. He was stronger than he’d been the first time he’d eaten a human and while the bones were still a serious inconvenience, his teeth tore through even the tough ropes of muscle with comparative ease. All the restless frustration that had been needling Felix for days was soothed to quiescence as he satiated his visceral hunger and through the blood-soaked veil cloaking his mind, he felt a whisper of peace.

Right up until another scent reached his nose.

_Hot-sharp-rich-safe._

Felix lifted his head, attention skating to the side. Gore dripped from his mouth as he growled, warning the interlopers not yet visible to stay away. This was _his_ kill, after all, and he wasn’t done eating. He heard quick footsteps a moment before two people burst out of the trees, rocking to a halt when he snarled up at them.

‘Felix!’

Ah, he recognised that voice, shrill with surprise though it was. Not relaxing his wary stance over his food, Felix blinked hard and the red haze withdrew slightly. His gaze flicked between the two sirens before him and he identified Hyunjin, who looked to be the more alarmed, as the one who’d spoken. However, knowing them didn’t mean he trusted them. Their focus was at least as much on the corpse as it was on Felix and he hissed when Hyunjin took a cautious step forward.

 _Protect,_ instincts whispered. _Defend. Mine._

‘Felix, are you hurt? Are you alright?’ Hyunjin asked, words quick with worry, and he teetered on the edge of taking another step.

Before Felix’s bloodthirst-clouded mind could decode any of that and possibly form a response, Minho laughed. It was a bright sound of delight and Felix found himself leaning towards it automatically.

‘I think the only problem Felix has right now is us,’ Minho chuckled, mouth curled up in a half-smile.

Hyunjin glanced back, head cocked. ‘What? Why?’

Minho grinned outright and his dark gaze met Felix’s. ‘We’re not here to steal your food, sweetheart. Did you catch it all by yourself, hmm?’

 _Yes,_ Felix wanted to say, but the word wouldn’t come. Instead, he made a soft noise in the back of his throat and bared his teeth in a feral smile.

‘Well done,’ Minho cooed, sinking into a crouch so he was at Felix’s eye level. ‘That was clever of you. Hyunjin and I are very impressed, aren’t we, Hyunjin?’ He reached out and pinched the back of Hyunjin’s calf, eliciting a shrill yelp.

Skittering away from Minho with a baleful glare, Hyunjin turned back to Felix, expression softening, and said, ‘Yes, very impressed. Some of us are just a bit worried, too. What if someone _saw_ him?’ he demanded of Minho.

Unsettled by Hyunjin’s rapid shift in tone and impatient with hunger, Felix uttered another low growl. Words still hadn’t come back to his head yet and he couldn’t quite string together what was going on, so his instincts took over again – and all they saw was a threat to his meal.

The attention of both magma sirens returned to him at once, Hyunjin visibly anxious while Minho maintained his usual air of unshakeable confidence.

‘Felix, sweetheart,’ Minho said, voice pitched to soothe, ‘I know you’re really hungry and neither of us want to stop you eating, but you can’t do it here, okay? We need to move back to the springs, so you can eat safely.’

About three words in, Felix identified a familiar tone that Minho was using. It was smooth and compelling, enticing him to listen. Part of him wanted to hiss and shake off the effect but the rest of him, drunk on rich blood and fresh meat, gave in to the compulsion with almost no resistance.

‘There you go,’ Minho murmured, not breaking eye contact as he slowly crept closer. ‘Why don’t you come with me and Hyunjin will bring your food, hmm? You can eat as soon as we get back up the hill, I promise.’

He held out a hand and Felix took it without hesitation, mildly surprised to see his skin was absolutely covered in blood. It didn’t hold his attention for long, though, Minho continuing to speak to him in that warm tone as they started to walk. Felix had only a brief moment of distress when a surge of _consume-devour-hungry_ pulsed through him, threatening to break Minho’s compulsion, but Hyunjin stepped into his line of sight, revealing the somewhat mangled corpse he carried, and Felix quieted.

The journey back to the springs took an unknowable length of time. Perhaps it was half a day, perhaps it was over in a heartbeat. Felix was certainly far too fuzzy to recall, his consciousness only resurfacing when they reached their destination and Hyunjin tossed the body in his arms onto the ground with a huff of relief.

‘Well done for waiting,’ Minho praised, releasing Felix’s hand with a light squeeze. ‘Now go on and eat up.’

And just like that, Felix was ready claw out of his own skin with sheer hunger. His hunting instincts resumed control and before he could blink, he was tearing out a mouthful of crimson meat from the dead human’s chest with his teeth. The intoxicating taste flooded his mouth and Felix shivered in sheer bliss, gulping down his food and going back for more. He maintained a peripheral awareness of Minho and Hyunjin, more to make sure they didn’t interfere with his eating than anything else. The rest of his attention was single-mindedly focused on stuffing himself until the wild part of him released the vicious grip it had on his mind, satisfied at last.

Only then did Felix draw back, his movements a little clumsy and a quiet purr thrumming in his chest. A glance down at the corpse revealed it was missing large chunks of meat, blood still oozing slowly from the exposed flesh. He’d left many of the areas that would require a more than passing effort on his part to deal with the bones, preferring softer places to focus on. As such, the thighs, belly, arms, and throat had been picked clean.

Completing his inspection, Felix turned to where he could feel two gazes heavy upon him and saw the magma sirens reclining by the side of one of the smaller, higher up pools. Minho was nestled between Hyunjin’s legs, leaning back against his chest with one of Hyunjin’s arms draped loosely around the front of his shoulders, and their eyes were very dark, possibly tinted red too. Felix’s purr grew louder and he arched his spine a little, preening at the thought of them watching him eat. Instincts whispered that this was a good thing, their attention a worthy response to the spectacle he’d made.

Running his tongue over his teeth, Felix found the mental wherewithal to ask, ‘Are you hungry?’ If he hadn’t been so content, he would’ve been startled at how deep his voice rasped.

Hyunjin cocked his head. ‘Do you want to feed us?’

Minho stiffened, making as though to pull away, but Hyunjin tightened his hold on him, keeping Minho close, still looking at Felix. A tension seemed to quiver in the air but Felix had no means of deciphering it.

‘Yes,’ he said, because it was true. It felt important that he share his food now that he was no longer ravenous.

‘Hyunjin,’ Minho began, his tone one of warning, but Hyunjin simply nuzzled his temple with a smirk and murmured, ‘Shh, he wants to. You aren’t going to say no to him, are you?’

A strange knot of desperation formed in Felix’s gut and he pouted. ‘I want to,’ he agreed. ‘Please, Minho.’

Minho visibly crumbled and he slumped back with a sigh, scowling at Hyunjin and reaching up to tug sharply on a lock of his hair. Hyunjin just grinned and Minho gave his answer nonverbally, directing a clipped bark at Felix, the harsh sound conveying _food-hungry-need_.

Felix brightened at once and he dipped down to the half-eaten corpse, using teeth and nails to rip a sizeable strip of flesh from one of the forearms. He held it in his mouth as he crawled over to the magma sirens, skin prickling at the sheer anticipation on their faces. It made him feel powerful. For a moment, he wasn’t sure which of them to feed first – but it was Minho who had been more resistant.

Tearing the meat in half, Felix just about climbed into Minho’s lap, purring again in an effort to reassure any doubts he might still have. He leaned in and nudged the tip of his nose against Minho’s, waiting for Minho to make the final move and open his mouth. Eyes of deep burgundy locked with Felix’s and Minho swallowed thickly, as though fortifying himself. It was so strange to see Minho as anything less than in complete control and Felix hummed, soft and low, encouraging him as best he could.

Minho’s voice was husky as he asked, ‘Will you chew it for me?’

The unexpected request sent a jolt of pleasure up Felix’s spine and he complied, tipping his head back slightly as he worked the meat between his teeth to a more malleable consistency. A fat droplet of blood escaped the corner of his mouth, briefly catching Minho’s attention as it slid down his chin. Then he tilted his head forward again, lips parted a fraction. Minho blinked twice, an occasional habit of his that Felix was starting to think was a show of nerves, and opened his mouth. With utmost care, Felix pressed their lips together and pushed the softened meat into Minho’s mouth, brushing his teeth over Minho’s lower lip in the merest suggestion of a bite as he withdrew.

Watching Minho eat the food Felix had given him was oddly captivating, and Felix scarcely blinked. He wanted to be sure that the offering was acceptable and he took in every flicker of Minho’s expression as he chewed and swallowed, aware of Hyunjin likewise paying close attention in his periphery.

Minho exhaled slowly after the last of it was gone, lashes fluttering down and up. ‘Thank you, Felix,’ he said quietly, lifting a hand to squeeze Felix’s nape in a show of appreciation. ‘You chose your prey well – their flesh was rich and satisfying.’

Felix squirmed, delighted by the praise.

‘Now, it’s Hyunjin’s turn, isn’t it?’

At the mention of his name, Hyunjin shifted in place, curling down to briefly press his lips to Minho’s cheek. Minho shot him a narrow-eyed look and turned his head away, but Hyunjin didn’t seem discouraged. He turned his attention to Felix, excited where Minho had been reticent.

‘Are you going to feed me too, little one?’ Hyunjin asked, the words a silken invitation, his dark eyes threatening to drag Felix into their crimson depths and never let him go. ‘Will you soften mine as well?’

In response, Felix took the rest of the meat in his teeth and chewed until it was suitably tender. He rose up on his knees, encouraging Hyunjin to sit upright with the press of a red-stained hand on his chest by Minho’s head, then braced himself on Hyunjin’s shoulder as he leaned in. Hyunjin tipped his head back against the rock behind him and parted his lips as soon as Felix skimmed his nose over the arch of Hyunjin’s cheekbone in silent request. Felix pushed the meat into Hyunjin’s mouth and his gut clenched at the brush of another tongue over his, Hyunjin actively receiving the offering. When Felix would have pulled away, Hyunjin curved a hand around the side of his neck, loosely holding him in place. Hunger of a different kind whispered through Felix’s blood and he acquiesced, keeping their lips pressed together, effectively allowing Hyunjin to use both of their mouths as he ate. Only when he was finished did Hyunjin release his gentle grip on Felix.

‘Thank you, Felix,’ Hyunjin purred, his eyes heavy-lidded. ‘You softened the meat perfectly.’

Felix hummed happily and the sparks of heat coalescing low in his belly might have caught, might have started a wildfire in his blood – if Minho hadn’t chosen right then to stand up, forcing Felix to skitter back out of the way and shattering the intimacy of the moment.

Hyunjin hissed peevishly and Felix blinked up at Minho in surprise, the lethargy of his meal making him slow to respond. But Minho didn’t see his startled, slightly hurt expression, busy as he was with levelling a very flat glare at Hyunjin. It was not a playful, half-hearted sort of look and Felix froze, his nape prickling in warning. Hyunjin, however, didn’t seem particularly perturbed, his return look mutinous. Before Felix could voice a question, unsure why they were so upset, Minho curled his lip disdainfully and turned his attention to Felix.

He visibly gentled his harsh expression, but Felix wasn’t stupid, he could _feel_ the tension rolling off Minho, and it set his teeth on edge.

‘I think it’s time for a wash now, don’t you?’ Minho said, not waiting for an answer before taking Felix’s hands in his and firmly pulling him to his feet. ‘We don’t want all this blood to dry on you.’

Felix was promptly hustled over to the edge of the spring and ushered into the hot water, Minho sitting on the bank and rinsing Felix’s hair, which was already stiff with gore. The urge to move out of reach and demand an explanation was strong, any sense of contentment having dissipated like fog in the sun, but he was terrified of adding to the bitter scent of anger that had electrified the air. Felix just didn’t _understand_. Everything had been going fine. Surely there was nothing wrong with him feeding the magma sirens? And they’d said he’d done well, they’d enjoyed what he’d given them.

So _what was this about?_

What with all the water and blood washing over Felix’s head as Minho cleaned him, he didn’t see Hyunjin approach – but he did hear a rumble in Minho’s chest and every muscle in his body locked tight.

‘Minho,’ Hyunjin said, skating on the edge of a growl.

‘No.’

Felix twitched at the steel in Minho’s voice.

‘You can’t –’

 _‘No.’_ Minho took a breath, flexing his fingers against Felix’s scalp. ‘Go and deal with the body.’

There was a loaded pause and then Hyunjin’s footsteps moved away. When Felix tried to lift his head, Minho kept him down with a disapproving grunt.

‘Nearly finished,’ he murmured.

By the time he was done and Felix could look around again, Hyunjin and the half-eaten corpse had disappeared. Felix wilted, true skin coming out to keep him from sinking.

‘Is he going to come back?’ Felix dared ask, meeting Minho’s gaze with more than a little trepidation.

Minho sighed, looking out over the spring for several moments, the line of his jaw severe. ‘Not today,’ he said at last. ‘I’m sorry we had to cut this visit short, Felix.’ He placed two fingers under Felix’s chin, tipping his head up. ‘Don’t look so worried. We’ll back in a couple of days, alright? Hyunjin and I just... need to have a conversation about something important first.’

 _If it’s important, why won’t you tell me what it is? Why are you hiding it from me?_ Felix swallowed back the furious questions on his tongue. He wasn’t brave enough to challenge Minho, not now. Not when he felt so small.

Getting to his feet, Minho offered Felix a faint smile, his attention clearly elsewhere. ‘Try not to go hunting again before we see you next, okay?’

With that, he turned and walked away until the rustling trees hid him from view, and Felix was alone once more.

* * *

_(‘What the fuck was that?’_

_‘I didn’t mean –’_

_‘Do_ not _lie to me, you knew exactly what you were doing –’_

_‘Fine! So what if I did! What else was I going to do? Refuse him? You couldn’t have done that any more than me.’_

_‘And you made damn sure of it, hmm? Don’t give me this shit – you are_ well aware _of why we can’t do this sort of thing with him.’_

 _‘Sure, but_ he _wants to just as much as us! He’s doing all these things by instinct –’_

_‘Exactly! Instinct! It’s not a conscious decision and it won’t be until he has other options available to him. So stop encouraging him or I’ll bring Chan to him tomorrow, I swear it.’_

_‘...That’s a low blow.’_

_‘We’re even, then.’_

_‘...’_

_‘...’_

_‘Storms. Fine. I just –_ storms.’

_‘I understand, I do. But we can’t. You know we can’t.’_

_‘Yeah... I know.’)_

* * *

It took Minho and Hyunjin three days to return, during which time Felix’s concerns about their last visit were drowned out by a slowly rising tide of scorching anger.

A sudden downpour on the second day lifted his mood a little, the cool water soothing his itchy scales and encouraging more of the loose grey ones to flake away. By the time the rain left in the late evening, Felix had vast swathes of iridescent scales in teal and cerulean streaking down his tail and the opaque non-colour in his fins and flukes had been almost completely flushed out by beautiful dark viridian. He found it extraordinarily difficult not to smile and preen every time he glanced down at his tail, utterly enamoured with his new colours, so reminiscent of the ocean.

Of course, all memories of the ocean were invariably linked to Hyunjin and Minho and with that came the nonsensical urge to snarl at whatever was closest.

The only problem Felix was facing with airing his grievances was a lack of any sort of plan. How did he bring this up? How did he start? How did he make them understand the overwhelming mess of confusion, frustration, and hurt they were creating in him? And how did he do it _without_ making them leave him?

As it turned out, he needn’t have worried because the unfolding of events immediately after the magma sirens’ arrival took the decision out of his hands and there was really no going back after that.

Their alluring scents drew Felix up to the surface of the pool not long after dawn, the sky clear and the morning air cool. His jaw had been aching on and off during the night so already he felt a bit grumpy. Catching sight of Hyunjin and Minho incited a weird mix of excitement and hostility in Felix. On the one hand, he wanted to haul them into the water and wrap himself around them, while on the other hand he wanted to snap his teeth at them.

There was no evidence of their previous anger with each other today. Their scents were clear of that awful bitter edge and Felix saw a couple of Hyunjin’s fingers linked through Minho’s, although they both let go almost as soon as he spotted it. Clearly, whatever friction they’d had had been smoothed over. Hyunjin suddenly lit up and Felix presumed he’d been seen amongst the curls of steam, hearing a cheerful greeting as Hyunjin picked up speed down the slope to the spring’s edge.

Tension coiled in Felix’s gut as Hyunjin drew near, Minho not far behind, his tail restless underwater. He wasn’t sure he could trust something nice to come out of his mouth if he opened it, so he drifted over to the bank quietly.

‘Good morning, Felix,’ Hyunjin said brightly, crouching down. ‘Are you ready for a trip to the ocean? You’ve been doing so well, we might go out deeper to swim this time.’

This was the bit where he or Minho reached out to stroke Felix’s hair, cup his cheek, or squeeze his shoulder. Neither of them made any move to do so today, their hands remaining at their sides.

And that, for some reason, was the very last straw. He’d had _enough._

‘Why won’t you touch me?’ Felix’s voice was low, so low.

Hyunjin’s expression flicked from startled and then to... furtive. Guilty. Like he hadn’t expected Felix to pick up on something so obvious.

‘First you won’t talk to me, and now you won’t _touch me?’_

Bewilderment drew Hyunjin’s brows together. ‘Won’t talk to you? What are you –’

Rounding on Minho, whose frozen posture and wide eyes betrayed his own surprise, Felix hissed, _‘You_ know what I mean. After all, if was _you_ who told me not to worry, you two just had to have a “conversation about something important”. Something to do with _me_ and why you _won’t touch me anymore.’_

Both magma sirens were perfectly still, staring stunned at Felix, who found himself growing more worked up at the lack of a response. He’d thought he’d prefer them quiet so they’d simply _listen_ but instead their silence only stoked the burning knot of anger churning in his gut.

‘Did you think I wouldn’t notice?’ Felix demanded, rearing up further out of the water. ‘The way you taunt me? You _used_ to touch me but now _you –’_ he jerked his chin at Minho – ‘stop Hyunjin every time, and _you –’_ he scowled at Hyunjin – ‘just tease, offering until Minho decides that’s enough.’ He paused for breath, fixing them both with an accusatory glare. ‘It _hurts_ , did you know? I have this _hunger_ inside me which craves more than I would ever ask for but then you – then you _play_ with me and –’

His voice cracked and broke, the growl thrumming in his chest breaking through, and he bit off the end of his sentence abruptly, turning away as he fought for some measure of control.

‘Felix, I’m sorry,’ Minho began, but Felix whipped around, water swirling in his wake, and snapped, ‘That’s not enough! I have been trying, trying _so hard_ to understand why you’d do this to me – what I’ve done to _deserve_ it. You even promised to take care of me! Or was that only during the Blood Moon, when I scared and weak?’

He spat the question at them and they both recoiled, horror and denial and frustration plain on their faces, apologies budding on their tongues – but Felix didn’t care right now. He didn’t want their platitudes. If he couldn’t, despite his best efforts, understand their actions, maybe he could make _them_ understand his anger and hurt and then, perhaps then, Minho and Hyunjin would explain themselves.

‘You invited me in so close to yourselves that night,’ Felix continued, slightly calmer, ‘and even then I knew that was special, I knew you were _trusting_ me.’ His lashes fluttered down for a moment as he basked in the memory. ‘I have never felt safer and happier than I did then.’ He opened his eyes, the burn of _rejection-grief-loneliness_ fierce under his skin and it sharpened his tone, curled his lip. ‘And then you _abandoned me.’_

Pent-up emotion clogged Felix’s chest and he gritted his teeth, struggling to breathe evenly but refusing to weaken his stance by weeping.

‘We didn’t know,’ Minho rushed out, and there was a desperation to him that Felix had never witnessed before, that pristine control fractured. ‘Felix, please – I didn’t realise it was affecting you so badly. If I had, I’d have –’

‘You’d have _what?’_ Felix interrupted. ‘Withdrawn even more? Left me?’ His voice wavered and he cleared his throat roughly, embracing his bubbling anger in an effort to steady himself.

 _‘Left_ you?’ Hyunjin blurted out, bracing a knee on the ground. ‘Are you kidding? We couldn’t leave you if we wanted to – which we _don’t.’_

A snarl clawed its way up Felix’s throat, rattling his ribs on the way out. The violence of it would have shocked him had he not been caught up in the midst of it. ‘Then why won’t you _touch_ me?’ His furious stare clashed with Hyunjin’s, then Minho’s. ‘Why are you _hurting_ me when you promised to care for me?’

‘We never meant to hurt you,’ Minho said, husky and earnest. ‘I shouldn’t have –’

 _‘Why won’t you touch me?’_ Felix growled, muscles tensing as though to launch himself at the bank and tear an answer out of them with his teeth.

‘Because we _can’t!’_ Hyunjin shouted, frustrated. ‘We _want_ it too much! _You_ want it too much!’

Felix jolted, nearly sinking in place as surprise stilled him for a moment, and Hyunjin pounced on his distraction.

‘You think we don’t want to touch you?’ he demanded, sweeping out his arms in an incredulous gesture. ‘You think _I_ don’t want to hold you like I did on the night of the Blood Moon Feast?’ His eyes, so dark, seemed to bleed into red. ‘But that’s dangerous, Felix, so dangerous. We’re the _only_ sirens you know and we’re not even the same sort as you. If you get too attached to us, how will you be able to join an ocean frenzy?’ He leaned forward over the water, a snarl of his own rippling through his next words – ‘If _we_ get too attached to _you_ , how will we be able to _let_ you join an ocean frenzy?’

Hunger, such deep, terrible hunger, punched Felix in the gut and the air whooshed out of him. He _wanted_ them to be that attached to him, he wanted it so badly. But even he could see that that might not be a good thing.

‘So why –’ his voice wavered, anger dissolving into grief – _‘why_ did you touch me at all? Why did you let me get so close? Only to –’

_Only to push me away again?_

‘We were reckless,’ Minho admitted. ‘I didn’t expect this to be one of the problems that would arise when we decided to help you. So we didn’t – _I_ didn’t guard against it.’

Hyunjin sighed, rubbing a hand over his face and through his hair. ‘How could we have expected this? After all, we’re –’

He hesitated and a whisper of resentment twined around Felix’s spine. ‘What?’ he snapped. ‘Don’t hide things from me.’

Minho laid a hand on Hyunjin’s shoulder and Hyunjin reached up to twine their fingers together. ‘We’re life-mates, Felix,’ Minho said quietly. He tilted his free hand towards Felix and light glinted off the tiny piercing on the back of his wrist. ‘We never thought we might find someone _else_ we wanted.’

‘You’re...’ Felix licked his lips, attention fixated on those sharp little points sticking out of Minho’s skin. He didn’t know the words but he _knew_ the meaning, could feel it in his bones. ‘And yet... despite this... you let me think I could –’

‘We didn’t _know,’_ Hyunjin reiterated firmly. ‘Your feelings, our feelings – it simply didn’t occur to us that this might happen.’

Felix glanced between the two of them, a fluttering anxiety humming to life in him. Once again, he felt lost, too small and adrift in an ocean much, much too big. Where did he go from here? Was there even anywhere to go?

‘Hey, Felix, hey,’ Hyunjin soothed, half-rising from his kneeling position, ‘calm down, you’re –’

‘I’m fine,’ Felix said flatly, startling himself with his own boldness. ‘You didn’t mean any of this to happen and it can’t continue. Right.’ His nails bit into his palms. ‘I understand.’

‘That’s not –’ Minho bit off the end of his sentence, grinding his teeth, and Felix could _see_ some of his surety, his unshakeable conviction returning as he squared his shoulders. ‘That is _not_ to say we regret this.’

‘You – what?’

‘We regret hurting you, of course we do, and I am very, very sorry for all the grief that we’ve caused you,’ Minho continued, his tone steely. ‘But I would be allowing you to believe a lie of monstrous proportions if I didn’t tell you that I _don’t_ regret – this. Us. It would be better to let you believe the lie because then you could stop waiting for something we can’t give you, and I know I’m being awfully selfish but – Felix.’ Minho blinked once and his eyes shone pearlescent. ‘You are not the only one who is _hungry.’_

Felix swallowed hard. ‘But we still have to stop. You’re still not going to – to touch me anymore.’

Minho set his jaw. ‘There needs to be a line. It would kill both of us –’ he nudged Hyunjin with his knee – ‘not to be able to give you that comfort when you want it, but we can’t... _touch_ you. Not like that.’

‘However, if you’d rather we stop altogether,’ Hyunjin said quietly, ‘we will. Whichever way works for you, lit– Felix.’

There was a sharp pang in Felix’s chest as his heart squeezed painfully tight. Apparently endearments were no longer permitted either. He made no comment on it, though, his voice rough as he said, ‘Don’t stop. Please.’ The part of him yet seething in hurt and anger snarled, but Felix tamped it down. He’d go mad if he never experienced either of their touches again, he knew this.

Someone inhaled, about to reply, but Felix dropped his gaze to his hands floating in the hot water and spoke first, the question tumbling from his mouth of its own accord. ‘Are you asking me to wait for you?’

The silence was deafening and Felix didn’t dare lift his head to see their reactions.

An eternity later, Minho replied, ‘No, we’re not.’

A caustic mix of humiliation and hurt burned through Felix, his shoulders hunching up towards his ears.

But Minho wasn’t done. ‘Neither of us would limit you in such a way, Felix,’ he said. ‘Don’t wait for us. When we find your frenzy, don’t let us hold you back. Throw yourself into it with everything you’ve got.’

Longing tasted bittersweet on Felix’s tongue and he peeked up from beneath the veil of his lashes, flinching at the look of clear-eyed sincerity on Minho’s face. For all that he seemed to despise his own words as much as Felix, there was no trace of hesitation in him.

‘But... I want _you_ ,’ Felix whispered miserably, his attention flicking between them both.

Minho’s smile was a shadow of its usual self, pitiless in its tenderness.

‘We know,’ Hyunjin said softly.

The quiet rolled in again, a palpable weight dragging them down.

Felix ran the tips of his fingers over his hard new scales and took a deep breath, releasing it slowly. He’d wanted answers and now he had them. He would survive this too.

‘So –’ he cleared the huskiness from his throat – ‘we’re going to the ocean today, right?’

The journey down to the shore carried a tension so heavy it might as well have been another person accompanying them. In an effort to escape it, Felix walked ahead of Hyunjin and Minho. He was much better at navigating the unstable slopes of the hill than he’d been to start with, so they did not go as slowly as they once had. Soon enough, the scent of the sea reached Felix’s nose and he felt a rush of sheer relief. Fear was present too, but less an overwhelming wave and more a few creeping tendrils now. The visceral joy that filled him every time he entered the water had done a great deal to reduce the crippling depth of his terror.

Felix disrobed as soon as he was past the rolling dunes, the sand soft and cool under his feet, not yet warmed by the sun. The tide was out today but he didn’t slow and nor did he falter when the little waves lapped at his ankles. Instincts urged caution in the back of his head, whispering warnings of _danger-danger-danger_ but Felix breathed through it and they subsided to a wary hum, making room for that blissful feeling of _relief-perfect-never-leave_. He knew the others weren’t far behind, their scent weaving through the salty air, and their unwavering presence gave him the strength to drop beneath the cold water. No matter how quickly he brought out his true skin, there was always a moment of renewed fear as he set himself adrift, his chest threatening to seize up – but then his tail unfurled and his gills opened and the wildest part of Felix crowed in delight.

The arguments and revelations of the morning had left an unpleasantly tight knot in Felix’s gut and the need to swim was an insistent rhythm in his blood. Perhaps if he could go fast enough, far enough, he’d escape the prickly sorrow that had coiled around his heart. So he didn’t look back as he flared his fins, flicked his tail, and headed out to deeper waters.

Of course, Felix hadn’t been out _that_ deep before and he curved his path to follow the coastline. The sea was calm and clear, and he saw schools of little fish darting to and fro, little shelled creatures scuttling about on the ocean floor, clumps of kelp and other plants swaying gently in the current. All the animals kept themselves well out of Felix’s way and if he’d been hungry, he might have turned his attention to hunting, something which he was still practising. Instead, he pushed himself further away from the shore, the water quickly becoming darker and deeper, until the background hum of wary caution pervading his mind grew louder, hissing about unknown dangers and wayward humans.

But the only waves here were small and light, rippling across the surface far above him, certainly nothing that might sweep him up and carry him away, and the water was free of any hint of a human presence. Felix’s senses were especially acute when in the ocean and he knew firsthand how terrible humans were at detecting danger before it reached them. And even if he didn’t trust himself to pick up on their subtler traces, he trusted Hyunjin and Minho to. Nothing got past them and they were not far, their beautiful tails dancing in his periphery as they kept watch over him.

Besides... as Felix turned his head to look into the wider ocean, the strongest feeling in him was _eager-excited-longing_. He _wanted_ to go out there, every part of him craving the freedom and singularity of purpose that those shadowy depths promised him. Even the frightened part of him, scarred by events he couldn’t quite remember, knew that he would be safe from the reach of any human if he went _deep_. They were fragile, after all, and wouldn’t be able to withstand the crushing weight of the water, let alone the temperature. And for all that Felix hadn’t come across any other larger predatory inhabitants of the sea like himself, the thought didn’t cow him. There was a knowing woven into the marrow of his bones, that he, a siren, was one of the most dangerous creatures out here.

So, after floating in place for a short time, simply watching the shifting currents, Felix put the shore at his back and, with a powerful stroke of his tail, dived down deep.

* * *

_(‘We can’t wait any longer.’_

_‘I’ll go. You stay here, keep him safe.’_

_‘Naturally.’)_

* * *

Felix had no idea how much later it was that he resurfaced. Perhaps he had been down an entire day and the sun would be gone, stars scattered across the sky when he came back up. He couldn’t find it in himself to care either way, not when every fibre of his being was thrumming with an all-encompassing sense of joy, of _rightness_. He only hoped Minho and Hyunjin hadn’t gotten too bored watching and waiting for him.

Yearning threatened to cast a shadow over his jubilant mood but Felix shook it off, swimming with confidence up towards the surface. The exhilaration he’d felt as he plunged deep and swept high and rolled through the dark water, his senses working double-time with all the new stimulus, had stolen his breath like nothing else. He almost wondered why he’d ever been frightened of the ocean. After this, Felix wasn’t sure he could bear to go back to the springs – the pools were so small, the water so hot. How had he lasted so long up there when the sea was _right here_ , cold and full of life and endless and perfect?

Dappled sunlight filtered through the shifting surface him as he rose and Felix saw scarlet and gold, Hyunjin gliding closer. There was no sign of Minho, however, and concern flickered to life in Felix’s mind. He called a question to Hyunjin, a simple lilting _where?_

Approaching at speed, Hyunjin slowed himself with a forceful lash of his tail that Felix felt even from a short distance away, Hyunjin’s hair billowing around him. He replied in the same inhuman speech Felix had used but with more specificity than Felix realised could be achieved, his brain translating the sounds into a precise meaning.

_‘Minho has gone to find an ocean siren we both trust.’_

Felix reared back slightly, wary, and conveyed his puzzlement with another inquisitive warble.

Hyunjin smiled, his fangs gleaming in the flickering light. _‘You can swim well now, Felix. It’s time to find your frenzy.’_

Shock bloomed behind Felix’s sternum, but it quickly shifted to all-too-familiar frustration and he tried to enunciate his thoughts as clearly as Hyunjin had managed. _‘Ask. Did not ask. Why?’_

Hyunjin’s expression fell, the energetic movement of his fins drooping for a moment, and before he uttered so much as a word, Felix could see that the concept hadn’t even crossed his mind. He growled, the irritated sound rippling through the water, and Hyunjin ducked his head.

 _‘I’m sorry,’_ he said. _‘I’m sorry, Felix.’_

Felix only huffed in response, swimming up till he broke through the surface, squinting against the fierce sunshine reflecting off the sea. The sun was high enough that he supposed it might be midday and while the thought of the hot springs made him want to claw out of his scales, the idea of bathing under the sun, lulled by the gentle to-and-fro of the ocean, was extremely appealing, not least because the morning’s adventures how tired him somewhat.

Hyunjin popped up a moment later, still looking guilty, and Felix exhaled through his nose, exasperated. Really, when did things get so turned around that _he_ was the one doing the comforting? Not that it was an _entirely_ unpleasant experience.

‘Can we rest somewhere out here?’ he asked, the shift in manner of speech sitting a little strange on his tongue. ‘I don’t want to go back to the shore.’

Brightening, Hyunjin led Felix to a spot not much further around the sheer slopes of the island where the tree-laden bank gave way to a series of small pools that looked to be the result of a landslide long ago. The tide, now right in, was just high enough to fill the pools with each push of the current. Squeaking enthusiastically, Felix swam in close to the nearest one and hauled himself up and over the lip with a splash, his tough new scales sliding easily across the rough rock. He wriggled until he was situated comfortably, the end of his tail curled up to fit. Nearby, Hyunjin had clambered into another pool, his red flukes draped over the edge.

‘This is nice,’ Felix purred, his eyelids sliding down to half-mast. He turned to Hyunjin, whose arms were sprawled out around the edge of his pool. ‘Is it warm enough for you?’

Hyunjin hummed, the very picture of contented indolence. ‘Oh yes, don’t worry about me, little – Felix.’

That put a bit of a damper on things, a taut silence falling between them as they both froze.

Felix rolled onto his belly, bracing his elbows on the lip of the shallow pool and fixing Hyunjin with his best attempt at a stern look. ‘Tell me – what will Minho say to the ocean siren? How can they find the frenzy I come from if I don’t remember it?’

‘Ah.’ Hyunjin sat up a bit and gestured towards Felix’s tail. ‘Do you see those faint bands of different colour on your scales?’

Glancing down, Felix was surprised to realise that there were indeed lines of a slightly darker hue than the rest of his tail marking his scales at periodic intervals. He hadn’t noticed them before, but then, the majority of his juvenile scales had only dislodged recently.

‘I see them.’

‘Those are your age rings. They show roughly how many years, or, um, how many summers you’ve been alive. And yes, we _were_ going to tell you about them,’ Hyunjin hastened to add when Felix’s expression darkened. ‘We only noticed them when you got in the sea this morning and we didn’t want to... disrupt you while you were swimming.’

Felix mulled that over. ‘But... I don’t understand. How does that help you find my frenzy?’

‘Well, given the number of rings, it seems you’re about two and a half decades old. You have some memory of the ocean before your time on the island, which means you were probably a few summers old when... things changed,’ Hyunjin patiently explained. ‘Minho will ask Chan, the ocean siren, if he knows of any frenzies that lost a pup fifteen to twenty summers ago. I don’t think that sort of thing happens often so hopefully it won’t take too long to find out.’

‘Oh.’ That sounded almost suspiciously easy and Felix directed his focus to the next question on his mind. ‘Am I old?’

A startled laugh burst out of Hyunjin. ‘To be having your maturation? Yes. Compared to an ocean siren’s lifespan? No.’

Quiet lapsed again, broken only by the sounds of the sea and the shore birds shrieking to each other as they swooped and dived, plunging beneath the waves in search of food. Everything in Felix began to relax, even the wary part of him that still expected something bad to happen going calm, though it did keep half an eye out.

Of course, there was no way he could _completely_ relax. Not with the knowledge that _this was it_. His trial period as an ocean siren was finished. Soon, Felix would be meeting another of his kind and he’d be expected to – well, to _be._ Hopefully this Chan wouldn’t have his hopes too high because Felix didn’t know a whole lot about what it really meant to be an ocean siren. Sure, he could swim now (and wasn’t _that_ a miracle all on its own) and he knew how to hunt humans but that was it. Surely Minho would explain everything properly.

Seeking to distract himself from such weighty thoughts before they disturbed the blissful tranquillity descending over him, Felix asked softly, ‘Will you tell me about that decoration on yours and Minho’s wrists?’

Hyunjin didn’t reply at once, though the way he visibly tensed assured Felix he had heard. Then he rolled over as well, extending his right arm so Felix could see the two sharp points sticking out of his skin. With a careful touch, Felix brushed the pad of a finger over them, wondering at the smooth black rock.

‘They’re made of obsidian,’ Hyunjin told him. ‘It’s formed from magma after it erupts from a volcano and cools. Accessing obsidian can be... difficult, which is partly why it’s used as the sign of a bond between life-mates.’ He smiled faintly, nudging the little protrusions with his thumb. ‘You’re meant to collect it for each other.’

‘Minho got that for you, then?’ Felix tried desperately to keep the depth of his longing from his voice and wished he had the strength not to even ask, not to prod at the raw wound on his heart.

Hyunjin nodded, regarding Felix a little tentatively, like he wasn’t quite sure he should be answering. ‘He made it into the piercing too, and I did the same for him.’

Emotion was starting to clog Felix’s throat, which meant he had to change topic immediately or risk tearing up, so he asked, ‘Where did you go for the obsidian? How do you make jewellery with it?’

After an invitation like that, hesitation or not, there was really no stopping Hyunjin.

* * *

_(‘Minho! Long time no see, huh?’_

_‘...You sound more like a human every time I see you. Had any inexplicable urges to burst into song lately?’_

_‘Fuck, I never should have told you about The Little Mermaid. Anyway,_ you _try being the finned half of the human-siren liaison for ten years, see how fast you start going native.’_

 _‘There’s going native and then there’s_ this _– don’t you go surfing_ _with them?’_

 _‘Yeah, with the_ other _half of the human-siren liaison. It’s called being friendly! You should try it sometime.’_

_‘Sure, I’ll get right on that, Chan.’_

_‘Hey, don’t flick your spines at me! Didn’t you come here for a reason? Mina said your song sounded urgent.’_

_‘And she was right. Tell me, do you know of any ocean frenzies who lost a pup sometime between fifteen and twenty years ago?’)_

* * *

The sun was nearing the horizon and Felix was out of his little rock pool, contentedly chewing on a fish Hyunjin had caught for him when an odd sound reached his ears. Hyunjin was having fun rolling through the water nearby, swatting waves with his flukes, and didn’t seem to have noticed anything, which was also strange. Felix waited a moment to see if the noise would come again, fish held still in his hands, but the all was quiet so –

No, there it was again. He might’ve thought it was Minho singing to announce his return but Felix knew it wasn’t that, he _knew_. Something told him that magma siren songs couldn’t blend quite so perfectly with the rhythm of the sea.

The sound grew louder and Felix discarded his fish, slowly propelling himself further from the island’s edge as he scanned the darkening water for the source of the haunting melody. He considered alerting Hyunjin but only fleetingly, his attention consumed by his search. The lilting song – _must be a song, must be a song_ – crested and fell like a wave and it dragged at Felix’s bones, summoning him with an authority he had no desire to challenge.

_‘Felix? Where are you going?’_

He didn’t answer, barely even registered the question, instead flicking his tail to go faster. A hum built in the pit of Felix’s chest, reminiscent of the first time he’d chased a human scent. It pushed up and out until he had to open his mouth to release it, a song he didn’t recognise pouring from him. It took the shape of a reply, reaching out to the newcomer and telling them Felix could hear their song.

The point of origin stabilised and Felix immediately turned towards it. Movement flickered in the distance, rapidly drawing near, and Felix slowed to a halt, waiting. He felt the water shift around him as Hyunjin stopped off to one side but he didn’t pause his song, though a note of anxiousness had entered it now, straining the tune. Felix was fairly certain this was Minho and Chan arriving and nerves were a tangled knot in his belly.

Two sirens solidified shortly thereafter, one with a dark tail that could only be Minho and one with a pale green tail that glinted in the fading light, his hair fair like Felix’s, who was surely Chan. Felix fell silent as he drank in the sight with wide eyes, the first ocean siren bar himself that he’d ever –

The song faltered, breaking off discordantly.

Hyunjin trilled inquisitively and Felix’s heart lurched, fear making his fins itch. What was wrong? Had Felix done something?

Before panic could sink its fangs into him, the song resumed – only this time it was twice as loud and instead of being a questing, summoning call, the tone was jubilant. The song proclaimed _family-kin-mine_ and it did so with a staggering depth of emotion.

 _Is he referring to_ me?

The thought was one of pure shock and it seemed impossible. Felix remembered almost nothing about his family but he knew something terrible had happened to them. Was this Chan really one of them? Could he already _know_ Felix?

Then there was no more time for such thoughts because the ocean siren was slamming to a halt right in front of Felix, tail curling forward from the force of his abrupt stop, pale hair clouding around a broad face with strong features. A bright green stare crashed into Felix’s and his heart nearly punched out of his chest. The sheer _joy_ shining in those eyes was breath-taking to behold.

 _‘Felix,’_ the siren sang, holding out his clawed hands. _‘Felix, kin of mine, family of mine, lost no more.’_

A soft cry tore itself from Felix, a sound of pure yearning that cracked as the siren’s scent reached him. He had no recollection of ever having smelled it before but instincts screeched, frantic, and Felix inhaled deeply, filling his lungs with _safe-warm-trust-family._ Ignoring the offered hands, he launched himself directly into the siren’s arms, clinging with desperate strength and burying his face in the crook of the siren’s neck, helpless to hold himself back. It was _vital_ that he not let this siren leave.

The siren’s chest thrummed with a rumbling purr and his arms wrapped tight around Felix, clasping one hand around Felix’s nape. He crooned, coaxing Felix to relax, to calm down and the part of Felix that bore scars from the long ago events at sea which had left him without family, small and scared, truly settled for the first time. Nothing could hurt Felix with this siren curled securely around him.

He was _safe_ here.

 _‘Know you, know you, know you, know you,’_ Felix chanted against the siren’s shoulder, eyes squeezed shut.

 _‘I know you, Felix, cousin-mine, I know you,’_ the siren whispered into his ear. _‘I never forgot you, not you or your parents or your sisters, never. I will always know you. Always know you as kin.’_

Felix was crying now, raw, broken little noises tumbling from his mouth without cease. He dug his nails into the siren’s back, piercing skin, as though to anchor them together forever.

 _‘You will not be lost again,’_ the siren promised.

It was some time before Felix could calm down enough to think straight, his breath slowly settling as he regained a measure of control over himself. No-one rushed him, not the siren holding him nor Hyunjin and Minho, their quiet, unyielding presences deeply soothing.

Feeling a little brittle, like everything inside him had been scooped out, Felix lifted his head and found himself the focus of bright green eyes. He trilled a raspy request that came across simply as _name-identity-know_.

Fangs bared in a smile, that piercing gaze unblinking. _‘Chan is my name and I am from the ocean frenzy that inhabits the water around these islands. As are you, Felix-mine.’_

The epithet made everything in Felix shiver with delight. Right now, it was exactly what he needed to hear – an assurance that he was _not alone._

A slight shift in the current behind Felix had him turning, careful to stay within the loose circle of Chan’s arms. Minho and Hyunjin were floating just far enough away that their tails didn’t bump Chan’s or Felix’s, whose tails were brushing alongside each other with every movement, and they both watched Felix with dark eyes and slightly strange looks. Something about their expressions had Felix reflexively tightening his hold on Chan, who returned the gesture, but before he could discern the exact nature of the looks, they’d disappeared. Warmth suffused the magma sirens’ faces and despite the heavy ache in Felix’s heart, his mouth curled up in a tiny smile.

 _‘Thank you,’_ he said. _‘Chan. Thank you.’_ He wrinkled his nose at how choppy and imprecise his speech was like this but no-one else seemed to mind.

Minho’s hand twitched as though he’d restrained the urge to reach out to Felix. He flicked his flukes at Felix’s tail instead, his tone soft and sincere as he said, _‘I am happy for you, Felix. We did not think we would find your frenzy so soon, let alone your kin.’_

 _‘This is wonderful!’_ Hyunjin crowed with considerable enthusiasm, shimmying in place. _‘You won’t have to return to the springs. You have a true home to go to now.’_

The very idea was enough to set Felix’s head spinning at the possibilities that might entail. One thing he was certain of, however, was – _‘True skin. Stay in true skin. Not want human skin.’_

 _‘Well, there won’t be a need for you to change skins anytime soon,’_ Hyunjin replied cheerfully.

Chan hummed, the sound buzzing through Felix’s skin where they were still pressed together. _‘There will be no need for human skins,’_ he agreed, _‘but you are not in a true skin, Felix-mine.’_

Felix’s brow furrowed in confusion. _‘Not true skin?’_

 _‘Magma sirens have true skins. We do not,’_ Chan explained, smirking at the mutinous mutterings from the culpable magma sirens. _‘This is your birth skin. Our equivalent of a true skin is called a deep skin.’_

 _‘Close enough,’_ Minho grumbled.

His smirk broadening into a grin, Chan said, _‘I suppose I’ll have to reteach him everything, huh?’_

Felix stiffened in horror. Had he learned everything wrong? Was he meant to have known that Hyunjin and Minho were showing him magma siren things?

 _‘Ah, I didn’t mean to alarm you, Felix-mine,’_ Chan crooned, nuzzling at Felix’s temple and tucking him slightly closer. _‘That you are here, alive and healthy, is more than I could ever have asked for. I have no little siblings so I am excited to show you our ways.’_

Renewed emotion wrapped around Felix’s ribcage and crushed inwards, stealing his breath again. He had no words to encompass his response, so he just clung tighter to Chan. The day had been filled with emotional upheaval on multiple fronts and at this point Felix was starting to feel a little overwhelmed, his instincts an absolute riot of glee, relief, worry, and yearning inside his head.

 _‘Perhaps we should head towards your home grounds, Chan,’_ Hyunjin commented, already shifting his body to a more horizontal state in preparation for movement. _‘I think someone is about ready for a rest.’_

 _‘Are you ready to go?’_ Chan asked Felix. _‘There’s quite a journey ahead of us and we’ll be meeting the frenzy leaders when we get there.’_

“Ready” was not quite how Felix would’ve described it but he warbled an affirmative nonetheless. He certainly had no intention of returning to the springs tonight.

Chan trilled, a quick, ululating sound of approval, and led the way down into the shadowy depths away from the island. Felix wasn’t entirely sure how it happened, but he ended up loosely bracketed by Hyunjin and Minho, though they maintained some distance, with Chan swimming directly above him, just barely forward enough that Felix could watch him for direction. It was, he realised, a very sheltered position.

The water soon grew cold and dark, less light penetrating to them as they went deeper and the sun set. Felix was slightly surprised at his _lack_ of surprise at how little the change in surroundings affected him. His body relished the chill, his senses seeming to sharpen in response to it, and his vision... shifted. It was not something he could’ve explained had he been asked about it – he just knew that he _could_ see and that it was a different sort of sight to the one he used in lighter settings. Remembering a comment Hyunjin had once made about preferring warmer temperatures, Felix glanced at the magma sirens flanking him, but if they were experiencing any discomfort, they gave no sign of it.

The group swam for an extended period, although it was hard to say how long exactly, as the lack of a visible night sky left no way to judge the passage of time. At least, not so far as Felix could make out, but then he was also rather distracted by everything going on around him. The ocean was bustling with life, especially on the seafloor, and it entranced him to the point that, more than once, he started to fall behind and had to be chivvied along by one of the others, not without some amusement on their part. None of the creatures drifting and darting through the water came anywhere near the group of sirens, giving them a wide berth, which pointedly reminded Felix that they were all considered _dangerous_ , threats to be avoided. The sensation was not as strange as it had once been.

Eventually, Chan tilted more steeply downwards and Felix was quick to copy him so they didn’t collide. Looking ahead, all he could see of interest was a huge, warped shape in the distance and it took him a few moments to identify it as a reef, something he’d not seen before but Minho had described to him. As they approached, a flicker of awe shivered up Felix’s spine. The reef was a massive, craggy creation of coloured corals riddled with dips and rises, nooks and crannies. It was with a start that Felix realised the creatures flitting about it were ocean sirens – there were so many of them!

Overhead, a song started up. It was a more complex and nuanced one than Chan’s earlier ones and it moved too quickly for Felix to understand it all. He gathered that it was an announcement, heralding Chan’s return and the discovery of something more, which Felix could only assume was himself. As the song reached them, more ocean sirens began to emerge from the reef, floating above it as they called out songs of acknowledgement and welcome.

That piercing sense of joy flooded Felix again, from the tips of his flukes to the crown of his head, growing stronger as the group closed the remaining distance between themselves and the reef, the frenzy’s home. He could make out the colours of various tails, the long fins and shining eyes of the sirens greeting them. Chan did not stop at the edge of the reef, instead continuing over it, and no-one rose up to interrupt their path, simply watching the motley quartet go by and spurring them on with their calls.

Felix did not even realise he was singing until some of the return songs began to answer his. The unknown sirens sang to him in recognition and comfort, assuring him that they _saw_ him, they _knew_ him as one of their own, that he would never be alone again.

It took him even longer to notice the conspicuous silence of Minho and Hyunjin at his sides and the attention they were drawing. Some of the songs contained notes of wariness and uncertainty, questioning the presence of two magma sirens who so visibly did not fit in here. Felix would have been worried about possible reactions against them, especially considering the unfriendly aura Hyunjin and Minho were both projecting, but Chan’s song remained strong and steady. It could be seen as a mark of how much faith this frenzy had placed in Chan that they accepted his word without any serious protest, allowing the passage of the interlopers through their home.

Shortly thereafter, the reef broke away, leaving a great plain of bare sand hemmed in on all sides by coral formations and overgrown rocks. Chan dived down towards it and three sirens swam up from it to meet them, others following at a slower pace and staying back a distance.

Two of the sirens appeared to be female and were noticeably, though not significantly, larger than any of the males, with broader shoulders and longer, wider tails. One had scales coloured pale blue and silver, her skin fair, and her eyes and hair similar to the blue on her tail. The female at her side was heavier with muscle and narrow-faced, her skin a dusky grey-brown and the rest of her colouring mottled black and dark grey. The third siren possessed a slender figure, his tail especially narrow and almost entirely a single shade of dark blue, his hair and eyes black, and his skin a lighter hue than that of the siren beside him, almost like drying sand on the shore.

All three of them exuded a powerful presence even without singing and Felix noticed with a jolt of surprise that the silvery female was missing half of one fluke and the male had a long-healed scar winding down and around his right forearm. The trio stopped a tail-length or two away and Chan nimbly glided down in front of Felix, effectively halting him. Minho and Hyunjin drifted in a little closer to Felix, bringing them within arm’s reach.

 _‘Chan,’_ the silvery siren said, her voice clear and vibrant. _‘Who do you bring to us that smells so familiar?’_

 _‘Jihyo,’_ Chan replied respectfully, briefly dipping his head. _‘This is Felix, cousin-mine who was never found after – after the attack.’_

Felix tensed. Was Chan being deliberately vague? Did he know Felix didn’t remember the details?

 _‘A survivor, you say?’_ Jihyo’s eyes were wide, her fins fluttering in shock.

Chan shifted to one side, encouraging Felix up alongside him with a gentle hand on his back. Felix leaned into the touch, his gut a mess of wriggling serpents as his attention flicked between the three sirens staring at him.

The narrow-faced siren flared her nostrils, leaning a little closer. _‘His scent does not lie and he has similar colouring to you, Chan,’_ she conceded, huskier than her companion.

Despite this seemingly positive assessment, her gaze remained sharp and Felix fought not to recoil.

 _‘His maturation must have started very late,’_ the slender male said neutrally, his black eyes taking in the few patches of grey remaining on Felix’s tail.

 _‘Felix,’_ Chan said, sliding his flukes over Felix’s in a brief comfort, _‘these are the sirens who lead our frenzy – Jihyo, Jeongyeon, and Hongseok.’_

Felix squeaked a tiny greeting, too anxious to be embarrassed.

 _‘And this,’_ Chan continued, speaking again to the trio, _‘is Hyunjin and Minho, the magma sirens who found Felix living in a group of hot pools on one of the islands in their region of the archipelago. I have had dealings with Minho before, as a liaison between our frenzies, and I will vouch for his integrity.’_

 _‘And Hyunjin? Do you vouch for him too?’_ Hongseok asked when the magma sirens had murmured a reserved greeting of their own. He watched them unflinchingly.

 _‘Hyunjin is my life-mate,’_ Minho interjected, just barely on the polite side of terse. _‘I will vouch for him.’_

_‘Felix.’_

Jeongyeon’s tone was soft and effortlessly authoritative as she swam near enough to reach out and cup his chin with clawed fingertips. Felix struggled to breathe evenly, her scent a wash of _strength-familiar-cold_ against his senses.

 _‘Forgive this lukewarm welcome,’_ she said. _‘We thought you dead many summers ago, so you have caught us unawares. Tell me – is this account of your discovery correct?’_

Felix trilled a quiet affirmative.

Jeongyeon cocked her head. _‘You cannot bend your song into words?’_

Squirming in place, he shook his head.

 _‘He has not had time to learn yet,’_ Hyunjin said, his voice cooler than Felix had ever heard it. _‘He has not been swimming in the ocean long.’_

 _‘Long?’_ Jeongyeon turned to Hyunjin, her claws careful on Felix’s skin. _‘Since when were you aware of Felix’s presence on your island?’_

_‘We found him three days before the Blood Moon Feast.’_

Jeongyeon hissed, releasing Felix, but it was Jihyo who spoke up, _‘That was more than six weeks ago. You thought to keep him so long from his home?’_

Felix shrank back against Chan as the atmosphere grew heavy with pent-up aggression, wishing he could properly explain things.

 _‘We did not keep him,’_ Hyunjin bit out, spines flaring. _‘He was terrified of the sea for_ weeks. _Today, he swam deep and unafraid for the first time, and so we have brought him to you.’_

 _‘Why didn’t you alert Chan of his existence earlier?’_ Jeongyeon demanded. _‘You are not of Felix’s kind, you could not have taught him better than an ocean siren.’_

 _‘Your kind lost him as a_ pup,’ Minho snarled, his tone venomous. _‘When we found Felix, he knew his name and_ nothing else. _Not what we were, not what he was, not even what the ocean was.’_

 _‘What of his maturation?’_ Hongseok asked, gesturing towards the patchwork of colours on Felix’s tail. _‘I do not think Felix started that himself.’_

 _‘No, he did not,’_ Minho said harshly.

 _‘So you did?’_ Jeongyeon reared back, incredulous, her flukes slashing through the water. _‘You started an_ ocean _siren’s maturation? With no thought for –’_

 _‘His body was so desperate for it, he’d started putting himself in dangerous situations in an unconscious attempt to start it,’_ Hyunjin snapped. _‘We offered to_ help _him through it and he agreed.’_

The beginnings of a growl were rumbling in at least one siren’s chest and Chan was as tense as stone. Instincts wailed at Felix to defuse the rising hostility before blood was spilled. He knew there’d be no going back after that. So he inhaled deeply and lifted his voice in song, creating a more complex tune than he’d ever done before.

Growls were stifled as all attention shifted to Felix, but though his song wavered, it didn’t break. He poured the depth of his sincerity into it, conveying an earnest message of _trust-faith-safety_ as he pulled away from Chan slightly and held a hand out towards Minho and Hyunjin, keeping his focus on the trio. No-one interrupted him and Felix didn’t stop until he was certain his point had been gotten across.

A hush fell over the assembled group when he finished and Felix didn’t hide behind Chan, instead staying proud and tall beside the magma sirens. He refused to let these sirens who were meant to be his _home_ , form such a horribly inaccurate picture of what his relationship with Hyunjin and Minho had been since they found him.

 _They saved me,_ he wanted to say. _They saved me._

The expressions of the ocean sirens remained sharp and Felix didn’t know how much they believed him. He resisted the urge to snarl at them.

Then Chan, his voice resonant with the echo of a suppressed growl, said, _‘That’s enough. I understand you have questions, as do I, but there will be no more accusations. I have staked my word on Minho’s honour, he on Hyunjin’s, and now Felix has spoken for them too. Do you hold so little trust in us?’_

Jeongyeon didn’t look entirely convinced but Hongseok stopped spearing Minho and Hyunjin with his stare and Jihyo tossed her head in acknowledgement.

 _‘You speak wisely, Chan,’_ Jihyo said. _‘This is enough for now.’_ She glanced at her companions. _‘These sirens may be of magma but they have returned a lost member of our frenzy to us. And...’_ Her blue eyes found Felix’s, considering. _‘And they have cared for him. If anything, we owe them thanks.’_

Arrowing a distrustful look at Hyunjin and Minho, Jeongyeon nonetheless tilted her head and relented, _‘I will retain my reservations until we know more, but I agree that Felix’s return is the most important matter here.’_ She shot him a faint, unexpected smile, adding, _‘Welcome home, Felix. I have no doubt that the others will be beside themselves with excitement when they hear of your arrival.’_

An involuntary squeak emerged from Felix’s throat, the sound one of equal parts enthusiasm and alarm. He was certainly very eager to meet more of the frenzy, to rediscover those who had once been his family and home, but... not at this very moment. The emotional toll of the day’s events on top of the long swim to get here had drained much of his energy and right now, he just wanted to sleep.

 _‘But that can wait for tomorrow, I think,’_ Hongseok murmured, regarding Felix keenly. _‘This youngling looks in need of a rest.’_

 _‘He is my kin,’_ Chan said. _‘I will take care of him.’_

Jihyo inclined her head sharply. _‘Very well. I wish you good resting and I look forward to knowing you once more, not-so-little Felix.’_ Her fangs flashed as she grinned at him.

 _‘If you both would remain a while further,’_ Hongseok said to Minho and Hyunjin, _‘then perhaps we can resolve this case now. There will be no more, as Chan put it, accusations.’_

Hyunjin snorted and Minho lifted his chin, replying, _‘Gladly we will stay.’_ His attention flickered briefly to Chan before settling on Felix, stony expression gentling. _‘Sleep well, Felix.’_

Felix had the distinct impression he wanted to say more but was holding back on account of their audience. So he didn’t prod, only warbled a tired, wistful goodbye and asked _return-meet-when?_

 _‘Soon,’_ Minho assured him. _‘I promise.’_

 _‘Just you wait, you’ll hardly miss us,’_ Hyunjin declared with a little of his usual cheerfulness, his dark eyes soft. _‘Off you go, we’ll see you later.’_

He flicked his flukes affectionately against Felix’s tail and, with that, Chan was chivvying him away. Felix was slightly worried about leaving them with the vaguely hostile ocean sirens, but Chan cooed to him soothingly and on they went.

None of the dozen or so sirens who’d drifted to the edge of the sand plain interrupted their journey, although Felix felt many eyes upon them. Perhaps it was the distinctly protective position Chan had once again taken up, swimming partly over Felix, that kept the onlookers away. Either way, he was grateful for it. As Chan led him through the warren of twists and turns in the reef, a wave of fatigue began to engulf Felix, leaving him with barely enough presence of mind to follow Chan, let alone admire the beauty of all the different corals. Surely there would be time for that tomorrow, though.

It was only a short trip before Chan was guiding Felix through an oval opening in a rock wall covered in green and purple coral, revealing a small cavern illuminated by little glowing plants attached to the ceiling. Felix scrounged up the energy to marvel at them briefly, and then he let Chan nudge him into a resting position. There was a moment where it seemed like Chan might try to exit the cave after Felix was settled, but he was having none of that. With a slurred growl, Felix firmly wrapped himself around Chan, who huffed in amusement and rolled them over so Felix was snug between the back wall and himself.

Felix hummed in content, already beginning to relax as the sweet comfort of Chan’s scent lulled his exhausted mind, and was very soon fast asleep.

Hyunjin and Minho didn’t return for two days but that was alright. Between meeting half the frenzy and exploring much of the reef, Felix was exhausted by the sundown of his first day at the reef. Not all of the frenzy was currently here, Chan informed Felix when asked about numbers. Roaming was a common activity for sirens, apparently, and sometimes it involved swimming away to entirely different oceans for months at a time. In some places, it was standard for the whole frenzy to up and leave when winter swept in, joining the migration trails of other creatures for warmer water. However, the archipelago never got cold enough for that so much of the frenzy was here all year around.

The reef was absolutely riddled with caverns and hollows like the one Felix and Chan slept in, some of them much larger and extending out into tunnels which snaked away in all directions. Felix found himself filled with an insatiable curiosity to learn all there was to know about his new home and he inspected every one of the caves he could find. To his endless relief, Chan seemed more than happy to play guide for him, answering each of Felix’s questions as best he could and naming all the plant and animal life they came across.

With such a large number of predators, many of the creatures living in the reef were very small, not the sort of thing sirens would hunt, and Felix asked how the frenzy stayed fed. There were several dozen adult sirens in residence at the moment, plus a handful of pups in varying stages of development, and neither the reef nor the surroundings waters held anywhere near enough life for them all, as far as Felix could tell. In response, Chan only grinned and promised to show him their hunting grounds tomorrow.

They returned that night to the cave with twinkling plants overhead and Chan explained that while the frenzy was one great big extended family, they all had private areas of their own to rest. This one belonged to Chan and now Felix too, so if ever he needed somewhere to retreat to, he could use this cavern. Felix fell asleep once more wrapped around Chan, the scent of _safe-warm-family_ soothing him deeply.

On his second day as part of archipelago frenzy, Felix met the rest of the sirens on the reef and some again. One who went by the name Jeongin, with blue-black scales and a mouthful of unusually small fangs, greeted them both cheerfully, as though he’d known Felix all his life. He was so playful and enthusiastic that Felix couldn’t help but relax around him, and perhaps Chan noticed this, as he suggested Jeongin join them on their hunting trip. Jeongin accepted with an excited trill that Felix echoed just because he could.

So Chan led them away from the reef out into the huge, comparatively empty expanse of the sea. Felix stayed near to his side and slightly below him, while Jeongin kept level with Felix but maintained an easy distance between them, letting the current move him up and down and around.

It turned out that the frenzy’s territory covered an enormous area, which included a couple of younger reefs, a steep drop-off into the wider ocean, and a kelp forest. There was more than enough room for a few dozen sirens and the entire day was spent traversing only part of it. Jeongin offered Felix some assistance with hunting, pointing out techniques Chan used and providing tips for how those with less weapons at their disposal (such as Jeongin’s diminutive fangs and Felix’s baby teeth and lack of claws) might still achieve similar results. Intrigued, Felix shyly asked if Jeongin would teach him more another day, to which Jeongin replied with a delighted affirmative.

After their stomachs were suitably full, the trio moved on until they came across one of the other smaller reefs in the frenzy’s territory. Felix flitted through it, recoiling with a squeal of alarm when he came face-to-face with a large grey-green eel. Fortunately, it was just as startled by him and it sped away, leaving him staring after it while Jeongin and Chan trilled in amusement, gently batting Felix’s tail with their flukes. He hissed at them both (an interesting sound underwater) but stayed a little closer instead of diving ahead.

Sunset was upon them when they came to the chasm, the water darkening around them. They paused by the edge of sharp slope, Felix hanging back behind the others. The temperature here was noticeably cooler and looking down was no good, as very little light penetrated much deeper. It looked like a vast, gaping maw and it unsettled Felix for some reason, his scales prickling and instincts murmuring indistinctly.

 _‘This is where you will come for the last stage of your maturation,’_ Chan told him.

 _‘Come here?’_ Felix questioned. _‘Why?’_

Chan grinned, fangs gleaming in the gloom. _‘To find your deep skin, Felix-mine. You will wear it for the first time when you go as deep as your birth skin can tolerate, and then you go deeper.’_

Felix stared out at the dark heart of the ocean, endless and impenetrable and viscerally alluring. Having swum out a short way over the sheer drop-off as though to give Felix and Chan room to talk unheard, Jeongin tilted his head down, scales shimmering ever so faintly, and lifted his voice in a piercingly evocative cry that rose and fell, twining with the rhythm of the current. Felix’s breath caught in his chest as he listened. He’d heard a few siren songs now, but this one was different, less an audible sound and more a part of the sea itself.

 _‘When you find your deep skin,’_ Chan said, looking out at the singing siren, _‘you will sing a song more beautiful than any you have ever done before. You will become the song and only then will you be fully grown.’_ He turned back, skimming his knuckles down Felix’s face. _‘I cannot wait to hear your deep-song, Felix-mine.’_

If it was going to sound anything like Jeongin’s, neither could Felix.

Hyunjin and Minho arrived not long after sunrise the next day and Felix met them at the edge of the reef, Chan staying just out of earshot. Neither of them reached out to embrace him, though they both made contact, skimming their fins across his and touching his shoulder. Felix did his best to swallow down any sign of disappointment – he got the feeling that, regardless of the argument the other day, the pair were being particularly scrupulous about their behaviour while in view of the reef.

After they had all greeted each other and Felix had regaled them with tales of his supervised adventures, he asked, _‘What are you doing? Go home now?’_ His sentences were still a bit clunky but rapidly improving, to his immense relief.

Minho blinked twice in surprise while Hyunjin cautiously replied, _‘We are, actually. We’re built for hotter waters than you and it’ll be too cold for us up here soon, so we’re going back home.’_

Felix stiffened, his tail faltering in its confident movement for just a moment. _‘When will return? You...’_ He hesitated, then pushed on. _‘Come back?’_

 _Are you abandoning me?_ Felix didn’t ask.

 _‘We_ will _come back,’_ Minho said, adamant. _‘After winter, when the water warms and the world comes alive again.’_

A mournful little sound escaped Felix before he could choke it down. They would be gone longer than the entire time he had known them and unfulfilled yearning bit deep in his bones. Would they even remember him by the time winter was done?

Not knowing the words to convey any of this, he crooned a quiet _know-see-remember?_

Hyunjin made a strangled noise in the back of his throat, his eyes overflowing with an anguished tenderness all too reminiscent of their last day at the hot springs. _‘We could never forget you, Felix. If you are still willing to meet us when spring comes, we would... like that. Very much.’_

Felix’s chest tightened and he almost wanted to say them _no_ , tell them he didn’t want to spend his winter waiting for the first days of spring, hoping they’d return to him. But that would be a lie and not one his heart was anywhere near strong enough to bear.

Subdued, he instead said, _‘Miss you. Come back.’ Please, please come back to me._

Minho shifted slightly closer, the faint sounds of a comforting purr reaching Felix’s ears, and he visibly refrained from reaching for him again. _‘I promise that we will come back, as soon as it is warm enough. But...’_ His gaze flicked over Felix’s shoulder towards Chan and the reef for a single heartbeat. _‘But don’t let us weigh you down while we’re gone. Please. This is time for_ you _, Felix, you and your family. Do you understand?’_

There was a distinct lump in Felix’s throat as he forced himself to swallow past it. His voice wasn’t really working right now so he dipped his head in a sharp nod, lips pressed firmly together to contain his cry – _I want you to be my family too!_

 _‘Well...’_ Hyunjin looked moments from casting their careful behaviour to the winds and simply lunging at Felix. _‘We have quite a distance to cover to the tunnels, so... take care, Felix. Perhaps your maturation will be all done and we’ll be meeting Felix the full-grown ocean siren then, hmm?’_

Felix remembered the abrupt drop-off into the depths of the sea at the edge of the – _his_ frenzy’s territory and the piercing beauty of Jeongin’s song, and shivered. He couldn’t imagine diving down there, but he supposed it had to happen _sometime_. Maybe even soon.

Minho’s flukes sliced through the water, his movements taking on an edge of agitation, but he too made his goodbye, almost crooning as he said, _‘I’ll miss seeing your cheerful self so often, so look after it well for me, alright?’_

His voice definitely wavering somewhat, Felix raised it in a song of _farewell-safe-journey_. He stayed in place, singing quietly as Minho and Hyunjin turned tail and left, their rippling forms soon fading from view, and did not move until Chan swam up to him. Wordless, Chan wrapped an arm around his shoulders and the song ended a moment later, broken by the soft cries Felix could no longer hold back.

* * *

It took more days than Felix cared to count for the lingering touch of misery to lift its heavy mantle from his shoulders. Chan was very good to him throughout, letting him mope all he wanted and steering away any unwanted visitors. There was only one visitor Chan did not deny entry to and, sometime after Hyunjin and Minho’s departure for their subterranean home, Jeongin came and found Felix, and enticed him out of his gloom for a hunting lesson. Chan accompanied them but from a distance, mostly leaving them to their own devices.

It turned out that Jeongin wasn’t a very good instructor but he was skilled and efficient in his actions and Felix had reasonable luck while trying to mimic him. Not to say that Felix wasn’t rather clumsy about it and caught very much, because he was and he didn’t, which elicited numerous peals of rippling laughter from his companion. As was no doubt the plan, a smile found its way onto Felix’s face before long and by then, he was much too busy pursuing various fish to bother returning to his despondent pout.

At one point, when they’d moved to a shallower area not far from the younger reef Felix had explored, Jeongin scented something larger than the fish they’d been hunting till then and he gave Felix his first lesson on stalking creatures too large, dangerous, or clever to simply be chased outright. It took Felix’s less sensitive nose a little longer to catch the smell Jeongin already had and it provoked an interesting mix of responses from his instincts, ranging from wary caution to excited anticipation. The creature appeared below, skimming the sand, shortly thereafter and at this distance Felix could make out a fish with a wedge-shaped head and long fins, its overall length a bit less than his tail.

 _‘A young nurse shark,’_ Jeongin said very quietly. His eyes were bright and his fins twitching, perhaps experiencing the same excitement as Felix. _‘You’ll get some sirens telling you that you can’t catch sharks until you have your claws and fangs, but that’s not true. They just lack imagination.’_ He grinned, exposing his own fangs, diminutive though they were. _‘Want to see what I mean?’_

A thrill raced up Felix’s spine. _‘Yes.’_

So Jeongin dived down, smooth and silent, slowly creeping his way towards the nurse shark. The oblivious creature noticed it was being stalked only a split second before Jeongin launched himself forward with a burst of speed and it had no time to defend itself, as Jeongin had already sunk his claws into the top of its head for purchase. Then he coiled his long tail around its body and _crushed_. The shark put up a strong but brief fight, thrashing its head furiously from side to side in an attempt to dislodge Jeongin, before it spasmed and went lax.

Felix sped down to join Jeongin, a faint, familiar ache starting up in his jaw, and he said at once, _‘Show me please. Want to do that.’_

Jeongin’s answering smile was strangely sweet for all that it was broad and sharp. _‘Certainly,’_ he replied.

They didn’t find any more sharks but there were plenty of smaller, less dangerous fish this close to the reef and the rest of the day and some of the night was spent alternately in intense concentration and fierce delight as they hunted. Chan only came over to join them when they moved into the reef after sunset, seeking out something small and fast. With the arrival of night, something of a changeover occurred – many of the creatures Felix was familiar with disappeared and new ones emerged. While Chan fossicked about in tiny nooks and crannies, the other two took a break from their hunting so Jeongin could tell Felix about the reef’s nocturnal denizens.

Eventually, Chan emerged from the some opening or another in the coral and informed them both that it was time to sleep. Jeongin made indignant noises, flicking his fins at Chan, but Felix realised with a start that he was actually quite tired. This had been his longest day of exploring yet and he cut through the semi-playful argument by declaring that he was, in fact, ready for a rest.

Chan threw Jeongin a triumphant look. _‘That’s what I thought. Come, there’s a hollow at the bottom where we can all fit.’_

Jeongin tossed his head dismissively but dived down nonetheless, leaving the others to follow along behind him.

 _‘Sleep here?’_ Felix clarified, surprised. It hadn’t occurred to him that they could stay here.

 _‘Yes,’_ Chan confirmed, gently nudging Felix down the side of the reef after Jeongin. _‘There’s always a few sirens at each reef. Today, we are the caretakers of this one.’_

Felix made a quizzical noise as he slithered through a narrow gap in the rock, mindful of the spidery red tendrils of a plant nearby, and found himself in a long, low-ceilinged cave under the reef. The sand was smooth and undisturbed except at one end where Jeongin was settling down, his flukes dragging over the ground.

 _‘Caretakers?’_ Felix asked with a glance back over his shoulder at Chan. There was space next to Jeongin but not much and he wasn’t sure if he was allowed so close, which left him dithering in the middle of the cave.

Evidently Jeongin had no such qualms because he made a small beckoning gesture, his expression clear, if a bit drowsy. Warmth pooling in Felix’s gut, he tentatively crept forward low enough that his belly brushed the sand and his hands were more useful than his tail at moving him. He lay alongside Jeongin, whose lips were turned up in a smug little smile, not quite touching anywhere except where their tails couldn’t avoid each other. The contact didn’t seem to bother Jeongin at all, so Felix relaxed into the soft sand and turned his attention back Chan. The siren in question was watching them both with a faint smile and when he saw Felix was happily settled in place, he curled up between them both and the cave’s opening, his flukes draped over Felix’s.

For a moment, all Felix could think of was another cavern he’d shared with two different sirens, coiled around each other until there was not so much as a whisper of space separating them. The unexpected flash of memory throbbed like a bruise on his heart but Felix exhaled and pushed it away, focusing instead on prompting Chan to answer his question.

 _‘Ah, sorry, you want know about our role as caretakers, right?’_ Chan checked, smile broadening apologetically.

Jeongin hummed in understanding as Felix warbled a quiet affirmative. Sleep was already dulling his senses, slowing his thoughts, but he resisted its pull to listen.

 _‘Every part of the sea is important to the well-being of the whole and every living creature within it,’_ Chan began, propping himself up on one elbow. _‘Reefs are especially important because they house such a variety of corals, algae, and animals, so much_ life _, and this means they need extra protection. Humans are not gentle with the world – they destroy wantonly and without boundary on land. But here, in the ocean?’_ He trilled a short laugh. ‘We _are the boundary between them and the fragile, beautiful world under the waves. Humans are cunning and clever but they are vulnerable to our claws and teeth, even our songs. And when they try to pour their poisons and waste into the waters, giving us nothing to attack, the strongest among us call up the sea to flood their homes.’_ Jeongin growled his approval and Chan grinned, continuing, _‘There is nowhere they can hide and still make use of the sea.’_

 _‘Doesn’t stop them trying,’_ Jeongin grumbled.

 _‘Which is why we remain the caretakers and guardians of the ocean and everything in it,’_ Chan said.

Felix blinked slowly, absorbing the new information. He hadn’t known siren songs could influence the sea, though it didn’t surprise him to hear it.

 _‘Caretakers_ and _guardians? Not the same?’_ he asked, caught on Chan’s choice of words.

 _‘Our songs can promote healing in an injured or struggling reef, among a few other things,’_ Jeongin replied, watching Felix a little fuzzily. _‘We care for the sea_ and _we protect it.’_

_‘Everyone cares and protects the sea? Or only strongest?’_

_‘Everyone,’_ Chan said firmly. _‘Those whose songs are most powerful are specifically called on only in rare times of need.’_

 _‘So... I am caretaker too?’_ Felix asked. He liked the sound of that, of helping watch over the ocean and all the wonders it held.

 _‘You are,’_ Chan agreed, his smile turning lazy. _‘Tomorrow, we will show you how we look after the reef.’_

 _‘It’ll be fun,’_ Jeongin murmured, his black eyes drifting shut.

The sight reminded Felix that he was, in fact, rather in need of a rest and he found his own eyelids struggling to remain open.

Noticing this, Chan flicked Felix’s tail and crooned, _‘Go to sleep, Felix-mine. I will keep watch.’_

Brows twitching together in a faint frown, Felix mumbled, _‘You must rest too. Sleep as well.’_

Felix’s eyes had already closed and his mind half drifted away when Chan very quietly hummed, _‘Don’t worry over me. You are my first priority, now and always.’_

The words chimed wrong to Felix’s ears and if he’d been more awake, he’d have argued, but sleep had him firm in its leaden grip. Another two breaths and Felix was gone.

True to Chan’s word, he and Jeongin spent much of the next day showing Felix what they did to care for the reef. They combed through it from one end to the other, top to bottom, looking for areas of weak growth, injuries, or sickness in the plants. Humans might not be allowed anywhere near this reef or any other but the poisons they tipped into their harbours and waterways were potent and even out here, the effects could be felt. Despite the outwardly pristine appearance of the reef, Chan and Jeongin pointed out to Felix many slight blemishes, areas which needed tending in order to contain the spread of illness or damage. As the reef was essentially a living organism composed of thousands of other organisms, any disturbance to its delicate equilibrium could impact the whole structure.

While Chan sang to one such area, his voice an ethereal croon that melded effortlessly with the rhythm of the sea as it encouraged the coral to heal, Jeongin informed Felix that sometimes they would even find pieces of rubbish, manmade constructions that had been discarded carelessly which might choke or trap a sea creature.

Duly horrified, Felix asked, _‘What do you do with it?’_

 _‘Give it back to the humans,’_ Jeongin answered, running his fingertips very lightly over the fronds of a large blue plant rippling in the current. _‘The ones we trust to keep it out of the sea.’_

 _‘Islanders?’_ Felix guessed.

Jeongin nodded. _‘Yeah. They dispose of it responsibly or repurpose it.’_

They moved a little further on, Jeongin guiding Felix’s attention and efforts, Chan’s song still ringing out behind them. Felix couldn’t do that part yet and he wouldn’t be able to until he completed his dive into the heart of the ocean and his song fully matured. So for now, he focused on attempting to pick up the tiny inconsistencies among the coral.

After a while, Chan’s song trailed off and Felix glanced at Jeongin, venturing, _‘With the islanders, how do – are we – no. Why, mmm, why do they...’_ He fell quiet, gritting his teeth in aggravation. How could he voice his question if he didn’t know the words to shape it?

Regarding him with ink-black eyes for a moment, Jeongin cocked his head and said, _‘You want to know about the relationship we have with them, right?’_

 _‘Yes,’_ Felix said, relieved. _‘Tell me, please?’_

Jeongin hummed, inspecting a small crevice that was home to a pair of colourful sea slugs. _‘Our history with them is a long one. Unlike many human groups, time has not washed away their reverence for us, the ocean, nor the volcanoes on which their islands are founded. It is still their tradition to worship and honour us.’_ He shot Felix a quick look. _‘As long as they continue to respect our presence and do not cause harm to the sea, we will not view them as prey.’_

Felix abruptly recalled the human he’d hunted down not so long ago, when he’d been out of his mind with hunger and frustration. They’d behaved differently from the outsiders, the “tourists”, and he was fairly certain they’d even recognised him as a siren before he killed them.

Fins twitching in a sudden burst of nerves, he very hesitantly said, _‘So... we do not... eat them...’_

Jeongin paused in the act of climbing a little higher up the side of the reef and turned to Felix, wide-eyed, who returned the stare.

 _‘Well... not, ah, often,’_ Jeongin replied slowly. _‘Unless an islander has unforgivably misstepped, we usually take outsiders.’_

 _‘Oh.’_ Panic stirred at the base of Felix’s spine.

Then Jeongin relaxed, reaching down to skim the backs of his fingers against Felix’s cheek with a wry half-smile. _‘Don’t let it worry you, Felix. It’s not forbidden. If anything, it’s an acknowledged occupational hazard, just... not one that comes about all that much. Besides, in_ your _case?’_ He snorted, undulating his tail to propel himself further up. _‘You could eat half an island and no-one would scold you.’_

Felix frowned, confused, but as he opened his mouth to voice the obvious follow-up question, Chan suddenly appeared over the rise, clearly looking for Felix and brightening when he found him.

 _‘Come, come,’_ Chan beckoned, already taking Felix’s hand in his own and dragging him up. _‘You haven’t seen a jellyfish before, have you? There’s a pair that’s just arrived over here and I think you’ll like them.’_

Both because he couldn’t say no to Chan and also because he hadn’t, in fact, ever seen a jellyfish, Felix allowed himself to be distracted and by the time the large, brightly coloured jellyfishes moved on, the oddness of Jeongin’s remark had left his mind and he decided it had probably been a jest.

It did, however, stir up a question Felix meant to have asked the very first night he’d spent with the frenzy, only it’d been buried beneath the tumult of the day’s events. Of course, now that he’d remembered it, the question burned hot on his tongue but Felix forced himself to stay quiet. This was a private thing and he wouldn’t ask where he might be overheard, not even by Jeongin.

As a result, it wasn’t until five days later, when the trio had completed their trip around the extent of the frenzy’s territory and Felix’s head was buzzing with all he’d learned, all he’d seen, and returned to the main reef, that Felix had a moment with Chan to himself. He waited till they were curling up in their now-familiar cavern in preparation for sleep, the space almost feeling a little empty without a third tail joining them. The question pressed up against the back of his teeth, begging to be released.

 _‘Chan,’_ Felix said softly.

A low hum told him Chan was listening, despite closed eyes.

Felix watched his face closely, the only kin he could recall ever having met. _‘The storm. What happened to my family?’_

Pale green eyes snapped open, Chan’s entire body stiffening to stone around Felix, eliciting a startled blink from him. He hadn’t expected such a strong reaction.

 _‘What – what do you remember?’_ Chan’s voice was a rasp.

Sticky memory brushed against the edge of Felix’s consciousness, cooling his blood, and he whispered, _‘Screaming. The storm was... strong.’_ The feeling of being completely out of control, his body at the mercy of a violent sea. _‘Blood in the water.’_ Something he couldn’t quite put his finger on, something which _did not belong_.

Chan’s jaw bulged as he audibly ground his teeth, a cacophony of emotion flashing across his expression too quick to follow. _‘They were killed. The storm likely saved your life by washing you up on that island.’_ A growl began to bleed into his words and he unceremoniously shoved Felix’s head under his chin.

 _‘Who killed them?’_ Felix asked, but his hushed words were drowned out by the rumble in Chan’s chest.

 _‘Enough.’_ Chan’s tone was steely, brooking no argument. _‘I would prefer not give us both nightmares tonight.’_

The ferocious thirst to _know_ clamoured within Felix, demanding answers, urging him to push and push until Chan gave up the secret that was rightfully Felix’s. But he was used to giving way and swallowing his questions, and right now it was all too easy to hear the way Chan’s pulse kicked, Felix’s ear pressed to the hollow of his throat, and feel the tremor in the hands that clutched him close.

Chan held him like he thought Felix might disappear at any moment.

Felix wasn’t willing to push any more than he already had. He would have to be patient and wait. He didn’t like it, of course, but he knew firsthand how sharply memories could cut and he neither wanted to hurt Chan or anger him with his persistence. So he’d let it lie until Chan was ready to talk.

Unsurprisingly, it still took a considerable length of time for his mind to quieten enough to drop off and Felix had a sneaking suspicion that Chan didn’t sleep at all.

* * *

The temperature dropped sharply over the next few days, enough that Felix could feel the distinct difference and he found himself a little glad that Minho and Hyunjin had left when they did. He wouldn’t have wanted them to be cold, although as far as he was concerned, the sudden chill was invigorating. His tail must have liked it too, because the last of his grey scales detached over the course of one night.

Felix was exceedingly excited and he spent the entire day twirling about the reef, showing off the symphony of teal and cerulean that allowed him to disappear in plain sight if he held still enough. Unsurprisingly, this drew plenty of attention from the rest of the frenzy and Chan was definitely hovering a bit close to be anything other than staunchly protective, but Felix was pleased to discover he didn’t mind the interest. Everyone was very respectful in their admiration, no-one crowding him too much. The delight shown by the sirens was piercingly, confoundingly simple – they were happy that he was happy and that his maturation was progressing as it should be.

When Felix later expressed his confusion to Jeongin about _why_ this was cause for such celebration in the frenzy, Jeongin laughed and said, _‘You’re family, Felix. But if you think this is us celebrating, just wait until you get your deep-skin when we take you on your first official hunt.’_ He grinned, all sharp teeth and bright eyes.

Somehow, Felix didn’t think fish would be their prey and anticipation was a welcome spark in his blood.

Another, less welcome development brought about by the dip in temperature was Felix’s teeth aching again. Sometimes it was mild, sometimes it was more acute, but unfortunately it didn’t seem so inclined to leave this time and, according to Chan, the soreness might stay until Felix’s adult fangs came through. Felix wasn’t entirely sure what that process entailed and when Chan looked uncomfortable and told Felix not to worry about it, he went straight to Jeongin for answers. The reason for Chan’s reticence became immediately clear, as Jeongin explained that the arrival of fangs was never an enjoyable experience – over the course of roughly a day and a night, Felix’s baby teeth would be pushed out and the fangs would follow close behind. The very idea of it made Felix’s stomach lurch ominously, nauseous at the thought of so much pain, and he tried to put it from his mind.

It was one of Jeongin’s friends, a quiet siren by the name of Seungmin whose striking tail was mottled pale blue and deep green, who suggested Felix try chewing on strips of kelp to soothe his aching jaw. The tough plant material made for a good teething tool. Not everyone found such things helpful, but Seungmin had and as the frenzy’s most recently matured adult siren, he was especially sympathetic to Felix’s plight.

So a journey to the kelp forest deep in the frenzy’s territory was made, Jeongin and Seungmin both accompanying Felix. Chan would have joined them but Felix was becoming increasingly aware of how protective Chan was around him and how much he took that for granted. Felix wanted to be able look after himself in his new home and he couldn’t do that if he was so dependent on Chan. Besides, he wasn’t venturing out on his own – there were two other sirens coming with him and Felix trusted Jeongin, who in turn trusted Seungmin, to keep them safe. Chan seemed a little less than convinced by this argument when Felix suggested he stay behind, his worry starkly visible in his agitated fins and furrowed brow, but Felix was determined not to give way this time and eventually, Chan relented.

If either Jeongin or Seungmin noticed that Felix stuck very close to them both for the duration of their trip, they were tactful enough not to mention it.

Happily, Felix and Chan’s concerns were for naught. Nothing untoward occurred and to everyone’s delight, Felix found gnawing on the kelp did provide him with a measure of relief. He also got a new friend out of the little adventure, Seungmin proving to be a sharp-witted siren who wasn’t quiet so much in the sense of shy reticence, but rather that he was busy keenly observing everything around him. On the way back from the kelp forest, they took a detour so Jeongin could hunt and Seungmin proved to be an excellent teacher as he explained Jeongin’s tactics to Felix much better than Jeongin had. Eagerly lapping up any advice he could get, Felix hesitantly suggested Seungmin come with them the next time they went on a group hunt and felt a thrum of pleasure when Seungmin beamed at him, fangs gleaming and white, and accepted the offer.

Deep in the back of his mind, Felix couldn’t help but think that Minho and Hyunjin would be proud of him.

* * *

_‘Beyond here is magma siren territory,’_ Chan said, slowing to a halt at an unremarkable point.

Felix glanced around, trying to identify a border of some sort but the water was undisturbed, the uneven seabed and its scattering of colourful plants dimly illuminated by the sunlight streaming down from above. He glanced at Chan and found he was already the focus of that pale green gaze as Chan waited to see if Felix could figure it out.

After another fruitless scan of the surrounding area, Felix scowled and asked, _‘Where is the border?’_

Chan smiled and gestured further ahead. _‘Go on a little way,’_ he instructed. _‘See if you can find it.’_

Felix squinted mistrustfully at Chan but did as he was told. He flicked his fins and drifted forward, moving slowly as he tried to sense any sort of difference or –

_Hot-sharp-heady-safe._

The whisper of scent grabbed Felix’s attention at once and he twisted in place, inhaling deeply to pinpoint its origin. It took him a moment to realise the smell wasn’t as crisp as it should be, that it was old. Not fresh. Pushing himself onward, Felix caught more traces of the scent until it seemed to be everywhere, a faint but all-encompassing element sewn into the very makeup of the sea. He turned around and saw Chan in the not-too-far distance.

 _‘I can smell them,’_ Felix called proudly, making his way back.

 _‘Very good,’_ Chan praised.

 _‘How do you know from here?’_ Felix asked as he reached Chan. There was no hint of the scent here that he could detect.

 _‘Your nose will get more sensitive with practise,’_ Chan assured him. _‘And with time you will recognise where the border is.’_

Felix stared out at the foreign territory which looked no different from theirs. _‘Are the magma sirens caretakers too?’_

_‘They are.’_

_‘Who protects this part of the ocean when they go home?’_ If humans were such a threat, surely the territory wasn’t left unattended over winter.

Chan hummed, clearly pleased with Felix’s show of interest. _‘The entire region around the archipelago is protected. Knowledge of our permanent presence here is almost as good a deterrent as the physical threat of teeth and claws. The humans are rarely stupid enough to encroach on our waters here.’_ He grinned, spinning into a lazy loop around Felix. _‘That doesn’t mean we don’t keep watch.’_

 _‘So... we do?’_ Felix queried. _‘We are allowed across the border?’_

Chan laughed, flicking his fins to lazily propel himself along the edge of the magma sirens’ territory. _‘That’s a bit definitive. They don’t formally acknowledge it and neither do we. It wasn’t_ that _long ago that our frenzies were at each other’s throats.’_

 _‘But we do it anyway,’_ Felix said, drifting along in Chan’s wake, more of a confirmation to himself than a question.

_‘Correct, Felix-mine.’_

A familiar burst of warmth fizzed in Felix’s blood and he beat his tail a little harder, flukes brushing Chan’s skin as he sped past. _‘Can we explore? Will we take a turn at caretaking?’_ He relished the thought of seeing Hyunjin and Minho’s home.

However, a glance back revealed that Chan’s expression had turned pensive, tension coiled in his broad shoulders. He met Felix’s gaze, pale eyes serious. _‘Don’t go over there by yourself. Or without me. We will have our time to watch over their territory but...’_ Chan glanced briefly to the side before whipping his attention back to Felix, almost like he was reflexively checking something. _‘We only go into their waters to complete our duties as caretakers. Otherwise, we stay on this side of the border. Understand?’_

Felix stared at Chan. _What are you hiding from me?_ The words weighed heavy on his tongue, itching for release. Yes, he was still fairly new to... all of this, but he wasn’t an _idiot_ and he was starting to feel less insulted and more hurt at how determined Chan apparently was to keep things from him.

 _Push, ask, demand,_ instincts hissed, while at the same time sharply reminding him of how tumultuous and lonely those last days in the hot springs had been, when he hadn’t known why Minho and Hyunjin were slowly, cruelly shutting him out.

Perhaps Felix _should_ have demanded answers from Chan the other night because he was beginning to realise that he had a weak point here. This need for truth, for clarity, for _understanding_ was a new thing in Felix’s life – unlike his bone-deep terror of being left alone again. Any time their paths were at odds, there could only be one winner.

 _‘I understand,’_ Felix mumbled, shrinking down as the idea of having angered Chan, having driven him away violently supplanted his building frustration.

Chan responded at once, surging forward to wrap himself around Felix, a comforting croon thrumming in the back of his throat as he gripped Felix’s nape with a strong hand, tucking him in close. _‘I’m sorry, I’m sorry. Did I speak too harshly? Forgive me, Felix-mine, I only want to keep you safe.’_

Yeah, Felix had heard something like that before and he honestly? He hated it.

Felix saw less of Chan after that. Chan said that he was being kept busy with his usual responsibilities as a senior member of the frenzy, a load which had been lightened while Felix settled in, and for the most part, Felix accepted this. He had no doubt there was some truth in it – Chan wouldn’t outright _lie_ to him – but there was a little voice that Felix heard every time things went quiet, every time he paused for breath.

 _He’s avoiding you,_ the voice whispered, a chill in the marrow of his bones. _You shouldn’t have pushed._

Fortunately, the rest of the frenzy seemed just as interested as Felix in keeping him far too preoccupied to let such dangerous thoughts catch up with him. Chan encouraged Felix to spend time with his new friends and familiarise himself with the intricate, endless minutiae and delicate balance of life on the reef, though he still responded with some hesitancy when Felix professed intent or interest in venturing out into deeper waters. But so long as Chan had some idea of what Felix was getting up to, he seemed content to trust Felix’s judgement. They still slept together in the little cavern with the softly twinkling ceiling. Chan was later returning some days than others but he was always back before Felix was tired enough to curl up and drift off.

On one such night, another question occurred to Felix. He mightn’t have asked it, anxious as he was not to distress Chan or further push him away, but Chan was especially late coming back to the cavern and he barely arrived in time to wrap himself around a half-awake Felix, worn out after a day spent hunting with Jeongin and Seungmin. Fatigue dulled Felix’s worries and when the question flitted across his mind, he saw no reason to bite it back.

_‘Where is your family?’_

The words were muffled somewhat as a result of Felix’s head resting on Chan’s arm, his face tucked close to the warm strength of Chan’s chest. If the way Chan froze around him, his hand clenching in Felix’s hair, was anything to go by, however, he’d clearly heard the question.

 _‘Sorry,’_ Felix mumbled, after a moment of taut silence went by, rubbing his temple against Chan’s skin in a haphazard, albeit genuine, attempt at comfort. _‘Don’t be upset. Sorry.’_

 _‘You have nothing to be sorry for,’_ Chan whispered hoarsely, a little of the tension leaking out of his stiff muscles. _‘It is understandable that you would ask. The subject is... a painful one.’_

 _‘Are – are they dead too?’_ Felix dared ask, dragging himself slightly closer to full consciousness.

Chan made a quiet, shuddery sound that cracked Felix’s heart right down the centre. _‘No,’_ he murmured. _‘They live but... not here. My parents prefer to roam the open sea.’_

Felix’s breath caught in his throat and he nuzzled up under Chan’s jaw, seeking to surround him in a cocoon of warmth and security. _‘Do they visit the reef? They too are my beloved family.’_

Tilting his head down, Chan’s eyes found Felix’s, now clouded with aged grief. _‘Rarely, but I think they’d be very happy to see you, Felix-mine.’_

Felix hummed, nudging the tip of his nose against Chan’s chin. _‘Then I hope they visit soon. I do not want my family to be sad.’_

Chan swallowed audibly before heaving a great sigh and settling down again, his eyes closing. _‘I hope so too.’_

He spoke the words with a sense of finality, the conversation finished, and Felix subsided without complaint. If he coiled himself around Chan a little tighter or purred a little louder that night, well, that was his own business.

The brief, late-night conversation stuck with Felix, not least because it had presented the seed of an idea to him. There was every chance he was reading this wrong, of course, but Felix found himself wondering if Chan might understand loneliness just as much as he did. Well, perhaps not _that_ much – Chan had had an entire frenzy around him for his whole life, while Felix had spent years by himself. But Chan couldn’t have been that old when Felix and his family were lost, and at some point his own parents had taken to the open seas without him. Felix’s heart squeezed uncomfortably tight at the idea of a young Chan feeling alone, even in the midst of the frenzy.

Felix had no idea what to do with these thoughts so he let them lie, keeping half an eye on them. They fit awkwardly in his mind alongside the mutinous undercurrent of irritation that never seemed to leave anymore, an irritation focused on Chan and his reluctance to share details of Felix’s past with him. Chan had made it clear that the topic was a painful one for him and Felix accepted that, but how could _Chan_ not do the same for him? How could he not understand Felix’s desperation to reclaim every part of his identity, even the awful parts? After all, the storm and the screams were the only fragments Felix had left of who he had once been. He didn’t care how many nightmares the tale would give him because at least then he would _know_.

The dissonance generated by this well-worn mental track and his inability to solve it set Felix’s teeth on edge more than anything else, including the persistent ache in his jaw. He found himself having to bite his tongue with alarming frequency over the days that followed his and Chan’s conversation to keep himself from snipping unnecessarily at his friends. Felix couldn’t bring himself to acknowledge the quiet glances of concern that his sullen silences garnered, instead ignoring them and mulishly focusing on anything else at all.

Given the distance Chan had been keeping between them, Felix was surprised to wake one day to find the siren in question still in their cave and waiting for him with visible excitement. Before Felix could ask what was going on, Chan had darted out the exit and beckoned Felix to follow. Despite his best intentions, some of the bitterness bubbling away in Felix’s gut melted at the brief show of attention. So, after flexing the kinks out of his fins, he gamely pushed himself out after Chan.

They left the reef at once and when it became apparent that no explanations would be forthcoming, Felix warbled inquiringly.

Chan only grinned and said, _‘I want to introduce you to someone.’_ He flicked his tail for an extra burst of speed and Felix had to hurry to catch up.

Felix quickly realised that they were going somewhere new, as their direction was not towards the other reefs nor the kelp forest nor anywhere else specific he yet knew. Instead, Chan’s trajectory soon began to slope upwards on a gentle gradient that led them into unfamiliar waters. Eventually, Chan brought them up enough that they skimmed through the sun-warmed shallows just below the surface and in the distance, an island appeared. A pulse of trepidation rippled through Felix but he didn’t slow, trusting Chan to guide them safely. The seabed had started to rise up beneath them, reaching for the shore arrayed with an increasing number of colourful plants and fish as it went, when Chan curved away to the right. They travelled along the coastline until suddenly it fell back, opening up into a large bay. Waves rolled in overhead towards the beach, large enough that Felix could feel the pull of the current that buoyed them on and a whisper of caution prickled his skin.

_Danger-sweat-hunger-want._

Felix flared his nostrils as he caught a hint of a familiar scent on the current. He turned his head to the beach, invisible to him from here, and wondered if this was one that humans were allowed to use.

A moment later, Chan slowed to a halt and twisted back around, reaching out a hand for Felix to take. _‘Felix-mine,’_ he said, seeming to glow beneath the gilding of sunlight through the shallow water. _‘We’re going to meet two of my... friends. Very dear friends. Their names are Jisung and Changbin and I have no doubt that they’ll be excited to meet you.’_

 _‘Alright,’_ Felix said slowly, his hand wrapped around Chan’s. _‘Why at the island?’_

Pale green eyes watched him closely as Chan answered, _‘They are humans.’_

 _Ah_. Perfectly aware that any reaction was being monitored, Felix nonetheless couldn’t keep himself from tensing, the spines along his arms partially unfolding and his instincts all shrieking to life.

 _‘Humans?’_ he asked tightly, trying not to crush Chan’s hand.

 _‘Well, Changbin is human,’_ Chan amended. _‘Jisung is a sand child.’_ At Felix’s nonplussed expression, he explained, _‘Only Jisung’s mother is human.’_

Torn between bewilderment and instinctive fear, Felix blurted, _‘We can do that? Have pups with... humans?’_ More to the point, _why_ would they have pups with humans?

Chan smiled faintly. _‘On very rare occasions, yes.’_

A dozen questions immediately piled up on Felix’s tongue and he couldn’t grit his teeth hard enough to keep them from spilling out in an indecipherable tangle. _‘What does it mean to be a sand child?’_ he asked. _‘Does he – which skin does he wear? Can he sing? Is his maturation like ours?’_

Chan laughed at the onslaught. _‘Sand children have only one skin, always the same as their mother’s,’_ he replied. _‘So Jisung wears a human skin. The only time he will sing is when he dies and no, he doesn’t mature like us. For anything more personal than that, you’ll have to ask him yourself._ He’s _the sand child, not me.’_

Felix blinked. _‘Oh.’_ Jisung sounded very much like a human. How unfortunate for him.

 _‘Don’t think less of him for any of this,’_ Chan said, still visibly amused. _‘Jisung can swim much better than any human and he has the same need for the ocean that we do, just not quite so all-consuming. He’s part of our frenzy, too, though he lives on land.’_

Felix relaxed a little at that. The frenzy was his extended family and therefore utterly trustworthy. He wouldn’t have anything to fear from someone who was part of it, even if they did live amongst humans and lack a tail.

 _‘And you don’t need to worry about Changbin either,’_ Chan continued. _‘We have a long relationship with the humans of this archipelago, although that is usually restricted to one of reverence. All sirens are sacred to them and different islands dedicate themselves to the veneration of different family groups within our frenzy and the magma frenzy.’_ He tugged Felix closer, running the knuckles of his free hand over Felix’s cheek. _‘These two are special. I implicitly trust them, they me, and together we ensure balance is kept between their island and the sea.’_

 _‘I’ll be safe,’_ Felix mumbled, more as a firm reminder to himself than anything else.

 _‘You will,’_ Chan agreed steadily. _‘They will not hurt you, Felix-mine. I promise.’_

His touch remained light, the brush of his flukes a gentle comfort, but there was no doubting the ironclad sincerity of Chan’s vow. In the whisper of space between each word, his sharp teeth, piercing eyes, and powerful body swore lethal repercussions in the event that the islanders proved Chan wrong.

 _‘Alright,’_ Felix said, and his instincts began to settle. _‘I trust you... Chan-mine.’_

It was the first time he’d used such a familiar term with anyone and doing so sent a frisson of delight bubbling through him, his chin dropping shyly.

Something flickered across Chan’s expression, gone almost before it arrived, and then he beamed, purring loudly as nuzzled Felix’s temple. _‘I am glad to hear it. Come, we’re nearly there.’_

“There” turned out to be very close by – it was a huge buttress of black rock jutting out of the water. Chan and Felix swam in low to the ground, while above them, two human figures could be seen sitting astride a pair of long, narrow, oval boards, the rock mostly sheltering them from the turbulence created by the waves. Felix had enough time to consider that they might be flotation devices, as human legs did not seem very efficient for swimming, before Chan shot upwards, aiming for the nearest human. Startled, Felix hung back a bit, watching with wary interest as the human moved out of the way just in time, toppling themself into the water. There was a great deal of shouting and kicking (surprisingly, the human stayed afloat even without their board) but it was the sound of Chan’s laughter ringing out through the air that finally drew Felix up to the surface.

Felix emerged with Chan between him and the humans, quickly taking stock of them. The one still on his board appeared in danger of falling off, given how hard he was laughing, head tipped back and mouth open wide as he waved a hand at his spluttering companion. Said companion was scrambling back onto his board, water dripping from every part of him, and grumbling loudly, although not seriously, if the smile he’d failed to suppress was anything to go by. The sopping wet human had short black hair, dark eyes, and a muscular body, only his thighs and lower belly covered by an article of clothing that bisected at his groin, no doubt for easier movement and worn too by his companion. They both had earth-brown skin as well but the similarities ended there. The second man was scrawnier, had long sun-bleached hair tucked behind his ears, and his eyes –

Ah. Chan had said one of them was a sand child, a half-siren, hadn’t he? Given the shining green eyes this man possessed, Felix would be willing to bet it was him.

Despite Felix arriving quietly and lifting only his head into the air, the strangers were quick to notice him, laughter quickly replace by expressions of something that might have been stunned awe.

Chan responded promptly to their change in demeanour, shifting so he wasn’t entirely blocking Felix. ‘Changbin, Jisung,’ he said, addressing first the soaked human and then the sand child, ‘this is my cousin, Felix. Felix, these are my – my friends.’

Jisung bobbed his head, bright eyes wide. ‘Hello, Felix. It’s, uh, an honour to meet you.’

‘It is,’ Changbin agreed at once, his voice softer than Felix had expected. ‘Thank you for coming to see us. We know how much you mean to Chan.’

Now, Felix knew nothing about these humans beyond what he’d observed, but even he could tell that such formality did not suit them and some of his nerves melted away in the face of their stilted speech. It was what he imagined he must sound like when speaking in the siren tongue.

‘Hello,’ Felix mumbled, sliding his flukes over Chan’s tail for moral support.

When he offered nothing further, Chan spoke up. ‘Felix has only recently joined us on the reef, which is why I’ve brought him with me today. He’s had to learn a lot very quickly.’ He flashed a quick smile at Felix. ‘Including that we like some humans more than others.’

Changbin snorted and rolled his eyes at Chan while Jisung made an intrigued noise and, after shooting Chan an unreadable look, asked, ‘Where have you come from, Felix?’

‘...Um.’ How much was he meant to tell them? How much did he _want_ to tell them?

‘Due to... an unfortunate set of circumstances, Felix has spent much of his life on one of the islands near here,’ Chan explained smoothly. ‘He was returned to us by a pair of magma sirens just before the season’s turn.’

Felix ducked his head, heart squeezing tight in his chest as he was hit with a sudden burst of longing for the little family he’d had on the island. For all the frustration he was causing Felix, Chan had been so kind and patient to him, as had his new friends and the rest of the frenzy, but Felix missed Minho’s mischievous smirks and Hyunjin’s infectious laughter. Most of all, he yearned for the sheer comfort of their presence. He couldn’t help but wonder if they missed him too.

‘I hoped that you, Jisung, might show Felix a thing or two about swimming in human skin, since you have the most experience with it. And, you know –’ Chan shrugged – ‘anything else that you’ve picked up.’

Jisung looked as surprised as Felix felt. ‘I mean, our experiences are probably vastly different given...’ He nodded towards Felix’s tail.

Chan smiled. ‘But you have both had a fin in two worlds, yes?’

‘Oh. Well, I suppose so. What do you think, Felix?’ Jisung asked the siren in question, his tone very unthreatening.

‘I, uh...’ Felix glanced at Chan again before he could stop himself and Jisung laughed, not unkindly.

‘I bet he didn’t give you a head’s up about this, huh? He’s pretty rubbish at that,’ Jisung said, his sudden casualness unexpected. He kicked his foot through the choppy surface of the sea and Chan sputtered indignantly as he caught a faceful of droplets.

As Chan protested his innocence to a largely disbelieving audience, Felix muddled through Jisung’s words, grasping their general, if not specific, meaning. And, sure, he hadn’t expected to be on the receiving end of an offer for swimming lessons, certainly not by someone who lacked a tail, but he didn’t mind. If Chan thought Felix would find some benefit from such an interaction with Jisung, he wasn’t going to disagree out of hand.

Besides, Felix had never met a sand child before. No doubt Jisung would have some singularly unique insight to offer, perhaps even some experience with feeling a bit like a fish out of water.

Felix hesitated before interrupting the play fight unfolding before him, however. Both Jisung and Changbin were cheerfully teasing Chan, who seemed to be entirely feigning his outrage as he splashed them with his flukes and attempted to grab their feet to pull them into the water. It was an incongruous sight, not only because Chan was the only siren among the three, but also because Chan looked _happy_ and Felix had the quiet realisation that this sort of open delight was not something he saw often, not from his cousin.

 _Dear friends, huh,_ Felix thought suspiciously to himself. There was something not quite right with that description, he was sure of it.

Uncertain how best to get everyone’s attention, Felix simply waited for Chan to resurface then swam up behind him and lashed out with the end of his tail, coiling it tight around Chan’s and tugging sharply. Chan yelped in surprise, but there was a grin on his face again when he glanced back over his shoulder.

‘You want to join in, Felix-mine?’

The use of the familiar term in the presence of the others caught Felix off-guard but he just about managed to maintain his composure as he shook his head. ‘I thought I was here for a swimming lesson.’ The idea of engaging in play with either the human or the sand child was just a little too unnerving.

‘Right!’ Jisung exclaimed, spitting out a mouthful of hair and salt water as he clung to the side of his board. ‘Do you want to change into your, uh, y’know? Your human skin?’

A bolt of alarm shot down Felix’s spine, immediately followed by a hot flush of embarrassment. Of course he’d need to be in his human skin. Jisung’s advice would hardly have an impact on swimming in his birth skin, would it? But the water was so deep here and the waves, while not very large, were still strong. What if one of them was too much for him to safely handle without his tail?

‘I won’t be going anywhere,’ Chan promised, cutting through Felix’s deteriorating mental spiral. His pale gaze practically shone with sincerity as he fully turned towards Felix, rising up a little further to shield him from Changbin and Jisung’s curious gazes. ‘Changbin and I will be right here, keeping an eye on you both, alright?’

Felix trusted Chan, he really did, but – ‘Why is this important? Why must I swim in my human skin?’

‘Now that you’ve brought it out at least once, you will have to do it again occasionally to maintain its health,’ Chan told him. ‘I know you’re not very comfortable with it but if you are to wear that skin, being able to use it confidently in the sea will be important, if only as a matter of safety.’

Well, Felix supposed he could understand it from that point of view. He hadn’t even tried swimming in the hot springs in his human skin.

Holding that thought in mind, he slowly dipped his head in acquiescence. ‘Alright. I’ll do it.’

Chan smiled and drifted back. ‘Good. Come and hang onto Jisung’s board so you don’t sink when you change.’

Wary, Felix approached the suddenly incredibly insubstantial-seeming board Jisung was still floating alongside, the current buffeting them both. Chan moved over to the jutting rock, onto which Changbin had climbed, his own board dragged up out of reach of the ocean’s greedy grasp, and Felix swallowed the urge to call Chan closer. He could do this without having his hand held the entire way, dammit. Grabbing the board felt weird and not just because the texture was unfamiliar – it interfered with the rhythm of his body in the water, threatening to clip him on the shoulder or chin if he wasn’t careful.

‘Are you ready?’ Jisung asked from the other side of the board.

Agitated instincts grumbled in the back of Felix’s head, displeased with the risks he was taking here, but he breathed through it. If anything went wrong, Chan would help him. Chan wouldn’t let anything terrible happen to him.

‘Yes,’ he answered firmly.

It had been a while since Felix last changed skins but it was still as easy as breathing. Between one moment and the next, his scales, fins, and gills were replaced by a ripple of skin and new muscles. The pair of legs that formed were infinitely inferior when it came to keeping himself afloat and Felix quickly hitched himself up onto his elbows on the board as he kicked without purpose or direction through the cool water. The feeble attempt at creating a new rhythm when he had simply _no idea_ how to do so made the insistent push and pull of the sea significantly more frightening and Felix’s breath caught in his throat, heart stuttering behind his ribs.

‘Hey, hey, just breathe, okay? Felix? You hear me?’

Felix blinked hard and focused on Jisung’s voice, the expression on his face calm and unconcerned.

‘I know this is kinda scary for you, but you’re gonna be just fine,’ he said sincerely. ‘If you lost your grip and got dragged underwater right now, I’d pull you back up before you got far and that’s only if Chan didn’t get to you first.’ He grinned, lips stretching around a mouthful of blunt teeth. ‘You’ve seen how fast he is, right?’

Jisung’s unforced confidence helped soothe Felix and the raw edge of panic receded from his mind. This close to each other, Jisung’s scent was strong amongst the heavy salt of the sea and it smelled strange, blending the usual elements of both a human and a siren’s scent until it became something unique, _heat-salt-safe-unfamiliar_.

‘Chan is... very fast,’ Felix agreed slowly.

‘So no matter what happens, you’ll be safe,’ Jisung promised.

He didn’t say it like a question but he looked at Felix expectantly anyway, waiting for a confirmation that Felix was still alright to go through with this.

_...don’t let us hold you back. Throw yourself into it with everything you’ve got._

Unbidden, Minho’s words echoed in the back of Felix’s mind, longing a quiet pulse in his blood, and he took a deep breath. He could do this. For them and for himself.

‘How do I start?’ he asked and Jisung’s bright eyes glowed with approval.

As first swimming lessons went, Felix thought this one was pretty successful. He didn’t drown, wasn’t forced to very quickly shift between skins in order to avoid drowning, and he didn’t panic. Well, maybe there was a little bit of panic the first few times he accidentally or, having forgotten he didn’t currently have gills, deliberately tried to breathe underwater. But, as Jisung had assured him, Felix wasn’t in any real danger – the sand child was an impressively capable swimmer and swiftly brought Felix back to the surface each time, helping him cough up the water. Chan tried to intervene to start with but after the first instance he was briskly shooed away by Jisung, who told him to stop being so overbearing, Felix was doing fine by himself thank you very much.

Unused to being protected from Chan’s usual coddling, Felix wasn’t entirely certain how he felt about that initially but he got used to it quickly. It probably helped that Jisung never rushed him and he was almost as good as the actual rock for hanging onto.

By the time Felix had worn himself out and brought out his birth skin again, he was able to make a passable attempt at treading water unassisted and he’d found a reasonable rhythm to follow when he dived down. After he stopped trying to breathe the sea, Felix had discovered his body was quite happy to hold its breath for a hundred heartbeats without any trouble. He couldn’t hold it as long or move himself as well as Jisung could, but he reckoned that was at least partly down to practise.

Chan had been successfully diverted by this point, too. Jisung and Felix found him in his human skin, scrambling up the jutting black rock with Changbin to hurl themselves into the water from the top. Apparently they were having a competition of some sort, one that involved lots of yelling and attempting to push each other out of the way.

‘Absolute children, the pair of them,’ Jisung muttered, paddling alongside Felix on his board.

A glance at his expression, however, revealed a look of deeply fond indulgence and Felix felt a missing puzzle piece click into place in his head.

Then Jisung yelled, ‘Oi! Chan, Changbin! Time to go!’

There was a responding shout which might have been acknowledgement or might simply have been because Changbin had reached the top first and launched himself into an unexpectedly elegant dive. Chan followed after him mere moments later.

‘You know you’re welcome to come back anytime you like, right?’ Jisung suddenly asked.

Felix blinked in mute disbelief. He knew that sirens were supposedly in the dominant position in the siren-human relationship, which probably amounted to him being able to go wherever he liked whenever he wanted. But that wasn’t why the invitation was surprising.

‘I’m sure Chan or another siren could do a pretty good job at giving you more swimming lessons, especially now that you know the basics, but y’know.’ Jisung smiled, his cheeks puffing out. ‘Changbin and I can usually be found somewhere down by this beach so if you wanted me to keep showing you, or if you just wanted to hang out...’

He trailed off and shrugged, looking slightly abashed in the face of Felix’s wide-eyed shock.

‘Really?’ Felix blurted. ‘I – I mean. Thank you.’

Jisung looked pleased with the answer. ‘No worries.’

The others arrived then, Chan in his birth skin again as he burst out of the water beside Felix and Changbin paddling around to Jisung so he could sling an arm over the board for support. Goodbyes were said and despite Felix’s relief to be heading back into the security of the ocean’s depths, he found a genuine little smile curling across his face as he waved his flukes at the sand child and human in farewell.

Felix didn’t miss the fact that it took Chan an extra handful of moments to follow him below the surface or the sense of contentment that radiated from him. He didn’t mention it, however, until they’d left the island and its jutting spear of rock far behind.

 _‘I knew Jisung would get on well with you,’_ Chan was saying. _‘I’m glad you like him too. Maybe Changbin could teach you how to surf one day.’_ He chuckled at his own words.

 _‘Did Changbin teach you?’_ Felix asked, going for a subtle approach.

 _‘Both of them did,’_ Chan replied, grinning. _‘I nearly broke one of their boards when we started because I was so frustrated with trying to balance on legs.’_

 _‘They seem to like you a lot,’_ Felix offered with faux casualness. _‘Have you been, um, friends for long?’_

Chan rolled lazily, swimming on his back briefly so he could look at Felix. There was a keen edge to his expression which suggested that Felix wasn’t being anywhere near as sly as he thought he was.

 _‘A few years,’_ Chan conceded. _‘I was hunting down a pup who’d swum out a bit far by herself when I came across them.’_ His lips twitched into a faint snarl, pale eyes narrowing. _‘The pup was caught in a fishing line laid by outsiders who had come too close to the islands. Changbin and Jisung were helping her out of it. I’m still surprised her blood hadn’t attracted the hungrier sharks.’_

Felix’s blood chilled at the thought of the little siren, trapped and fearing for her life. _‘What happened?_

 _’I ripped the line out of the boat and gave it to Changbin to take back to shore.’_ Chan made a rumbling noise in the back of his throat and a shiver ran down the length of his body, like he was trying to shake off the remembered anger. _‘I couldn’t sink a boat by myself so I left it to the islanders to drive them off.’_

_‘How was the pup? Did she heal?’_

_‘She did. Then she demanded I take her back to see “the human and the not-human” so she could thank them,’_ Chan said, his expression gentling into amusement as he skimmed his fingertips over a cluster of young kelp plants, startling several small fish out of hiding. _‘We just kept meeting after that.’_

 _‘And... now?’_ Felix asked, vaguely surprised at his own boldness but unable to shake loose the memory of Jisung’s soft expression as he’d watched Chan and Changbin scrambling up that rock. _‘You said they’re dear to you.’_

Chan trilled a laugh and his fins fluttered in a way that had nothing to do with course correction. _‘They are,’_ he said at last. _‘Very, very dear to me.’_

That was all Chan would say on the subject but, in conjunction with the helpless smile on his face, it was more than enough for Felix. He was simply glad his cousin had found somebody – rather, _two_ somebodies to make him happy. It was not a joy Felix would begrudge him for, no matter that it keenly reminded him of his own two somebodies. That was a nagging ache he was simply learning to live with.

* * *

Winter marched on.

The temperatures continued to drop, though gently, and the sea became a little quieter, a little emptier. Apparently, there were places very far away that got so cold, the water would freeze on top, and when Felix asked if he could go there, Chan laughed and told him one day, one day. He was so close to finishing his maturation that Felix shouldn’t be straying too far from the reef until it was finished.

The longest night came and went, bringing with it a celebration that involved lots of singing, gliding through the wind-tossed surface of the sea, and, for those who could, diving down far enough to bring out their deep skins. Even stuck up on level with the reef, Felix could feel the haunting echoes of deep-song twining through the current and sliding over his scales. They seemed to beckon him closer and he had to be hauled back from the edge of the underwater cliff multiple times by members of the frenzy who laughed good-naturedly at his enthusiasm.

 _‘It’s not your turn yet,’_ they said. _‘Wait until your deep-skin is ready to come out.’_

But as winter entered its final third, some of the chill beginning to retreat from the sea, the sun rising a little earlier every day, impatience brewed in Felix’s mind. He wanted to be ready _now_. Hadn’t he waited long enough? He even tried tugging on some of his teeth to see if he could hurry them along, but to no avail. They simply continued to ache, firmly anchored to his jaws.

So Felix turned his attention to the other irritation in his life. Chan. Kind, loving, wonderful Chan, who shut down any topic of conversation that could be linked back to Felix’s past. Felix tried to be patient, he tried very, very hard, and for a while, it worked. Well, sort of worked. His mood soured ever further and he could no longer stop himself from snapping a snarly response when questioned about the frown that was trying to carve itself permanently into his face – but everyone seemed convinced this was all a result of his delayed maturation, so no matter how pissed off he was, Felix received only sympathy instead of reprimands.

Eventually, Felix decided he was going to start screaming if he didn’t get some answers, so he turned to someone who was not Chan for help.

* * *

_‘Jeongin.’_

The siren in question was currently drifting very close to the ground, weaving between tall strands of kelp as he followed the traces left by a fish worth hunting. Traces which, as far as Felix was concerned, were invisible and as such he was meant to be paying close attention to Jeongin’s methods of tracking but there was a question sitting heavy on his tongue and, quite frankly, he’d had enough of holding it back.

When Jeongin made no response, irritation arced through Felix. _‘Jeongin.’_ He forcibly tempered his tone so he didn’t snap. _‘I have a question for you.’_

 _‘And I have a blacknose shark for you to catch,’_ Jeongin replied, skimming the swaying carpet of seagrass that was rapidly growing denser as they reached the edge of the kelp forest. He came to a sudden halt, beckoning Felix down to him and gesturing ahead. _‘Can you smell it yet?’_

Biting back a grumble, Felix obligingly approached and tried in vain to find any hint of the shark’s presence. Unfortunately, the current was alive with all manner of scents and Felix thought he was doing well to even differentiate between them, let alone identify one in particular. He shook his head and Jeongin hummed.

_‘Never mind. Do you still want to go after it?’_

Felix was hungry and it certainly wasn’t helping his mood. _‘Yes, but help me? Please?’_

Jeongin grinned, fangs on gleaming display. _‘Of course.’_

He led the way forward, slower now and very careful, Felix doing his best to mimic some of that stealth. They did not get far before a new scent reached Felix’s nose and he resisted the urge to hiss with feral excitement – it was definitely the shark, a strong thread of _prey-food_ mixed with a primal thrum of _danger-danger-danger_.

Jeongin went still a moment later and Felix knew he’d spotted their quarry, so he let himself sink gently down into the slight cover of the sea grass and scoured the area ahead. It took him a handful of heartbeats but he felt a burst of pride when he saw a shadowy creature fossicking around the base of a clump of spindly kelp plants that wavered in the current. The shark didn’t look especially big, probably a juvenile, but there would be enough meat on it to feed both sirens.

Felix felt Jeongin’s flukes skim his tail, letting Felix know he was ready to pounce, and Felix returned the gesture. Then he exhaled slowly, pinning his focus on the shark, every one of his predatory instincts simmering with taut awareness under his skin. Mindful of the need to stay downcurrent of the shark for as long as possible, Felix inched forward with utmost care, not making a single movement in haste. He made it within ten tail-lengths of the shark before the stone-grey creature suddenly lifted its head, tasting the scents on the current suspiciously.

Muscles bunched, teeth bared, fins flared – Felix launched himself at the shark, crossing the distance between them in a heartbeat. He slammed into the shark, sinking nails and teeth into the rubbery flesh of its back so it couldn’t escape or twist around and bite him with its far more threatening fangs. Despite its small stature, the shark was strong and it immediately twisted and rolled furiously through the water in an attempt to throw Felix off. His hands began to slip almost at once so he wrapped his tail around the shark’s lower body, fighting to immobilise it with his superior size as he ripped at the back of its head with his teeth.

For the first few moments, Felix seemed to have the advantage and he knew he could win this battle as long as he didn’t let the shark escape his grasp. Then the shark rolled again and Felix’s shoulder and ribs collided hard with a rough knuckle of rock protruding from the ground and the burst of pain loosened the grip of his right hand for a bare instant – but that instant was enough. The shark sensed its opportunity for freedom, for it seemed to writhe twice as hard as before and Felix didn’t have a good enough hold, he wasn’t strong enough, he _couldn’t –_

Midnight scales swept overhead and suddenly Jeongin was coiled tight around the shark, his tail overlapping Felix’s, and there was a distinct squelching crunch as he used his claws and small fangs to shatter the shark’s neck and skull. The shark thrashed a moment longer and then went limp, blood clouding the water, and the sirens untangled themselves from its body.

 _‘Dammit,’_ Felix growled, shuddering with post-fight adrenaline. _‘I nearly lost it.’_

 _‘You’re getting better,’_ Jeongin assured him. _‘You won’t need my help soon.’_

Felix made a dubious noise which was overshadowed by the sudden snarl that thundered out of Jeongin’s chest, his attention whipping up beyond Felix. Spinning around, Felix glimpsed a much larger shark in the distance. It paused, perhaps considering approaching, but another threatening rumble from Jeongin had it turning away.

 _‘Let’s eat before anyone else arrives,’_ Jeongin muttered. _‘I don’t like fighting off competition when I’m hungry.’_

Nor did Felix, although if he _had_ been alone and a creature the size of the departing shark had shown up to contest his right for his prey, he probably would have abandoned it. He was by no means ready to take on full-grown predators on his own yet.

Without further words, the sirens tore into their food, stripping the shark of its flesh piece by piece. Jeongin cracked open the ribcage, his powerful jaws splintering the bones between his fangs, and Felix dug into the newly exposed meat with relish. His own teeth had been especially sore recently, forcing him to rely more on his hands when ripping apart tough meat. He wouldn’t ask anyone to chew his food for him, though – not only had Chan told him that this was part of his teeth getting ready to come out, that Felix had to keep using them to encourage his fangs along, but it felt like far too intimate an act to perform with anyone other than a certain pair of sirens who were still far, far beyond his reach.

After they had both eaten their fill, left the remnants of the carcass for the scavengers, and started lazily drifting along in the current back towards the reef, Jeongin turned his dark eyes to Felix and said, _‘You had a question for me.’_

Though satiated by his heavy meal, it took Felix less than a moment to remember what Jeongin was talking about and his pulse jumped, filled in equal part with exhilaration and trepidation at what he was about to ask.

 _‘It’s about Chan,’_ he said, watching for Jeongin’s reaction closely.

But Jeongin only tilted his head curiously and rolled onto his back. _‘Go on.’_

 _‘Chan is... reluctant to tell me what happened to my family and me.’_ A thread of anger, hot and sharp, wove through his words and Felix made no attempt to stifle it. _‘I know he knows but he always finds some reason not to say anything or he brushes me off and I can’t – I can’t just keep letting him hide behind his excuses.’_ Felix swallowed hard and consciously gentled the rhythm of his tail so he didn’t accidentally shoot off ahead.

 _‘What is your question?’_ Jeongin asked quietly.

 _‘Why won’t he tell me?’_ Felix demanded. _‘Surely it is my right to know.’_

 _‘Ah.’_ Jeongin’s expression turned sombre. _‘Yes, Felix, it is your right and I would tell you myself but... I wasn’t there. I was a pup myself and safe at home in the reef during that storm.’_ His usually mischievous eyes were very dark now. _‘Chan was there. He was the first one there after... everything. He’s always been an exceptionally fast swimmer.’_

 _‘But you_ know,’ Felix stressed, agitation prickling the spines along his arms and up his back. _‘And he_ won’t _tell me so –’_

 _‘Be patient with him,’_ Jeongin interrupted.

 _‘I_ have _been!’_ Felix exclaimed, abruptly halting their journey so he didn’t crash into anything in his distraction. He ground his teeth, trying to keep from shouting at his friend. _‘Winter is two thirds gone and yet still I must be patient? If he is not ready to talk to me now, when will he ever be?’_

 _‘I know, I_ know _it’s unfair,’_ Jeongin said. _‘But it isn’t my place to tell you what happened. It’s his.’_ He chewed on the edge of his lip, visibly conflicted. _‘You must understand that while the loss of your family was truly awful for the whole frenzy...’_

 _‘What?’_ Felix demanded.

_‘It hit Chan the hardest.’_

The urge to forgive and forget smashed up against the caustic knot of resentful frustration lodged in Felix’s chest and for once, it did not come away the victor.

 _‘He still hasn’t gotten over it, you know?’_ Jeongin continued. _‘Finding you was really wonderful, Felix, and, well, you don’t know what Chan was like before. If you think he’s sparing with his smiles now...’_ He snorted softly. _‘Chan_ will _tell you. He knows the duty lies with him. Just give him a bit more time.’_

 _‘And if he doesn’t?’_ Felix bit out. _‘How long must I wait?’_

Jeongin sighed heavily, stirring the water in front of him. _‘If he hasn’t told you by the time you complete your maturation, come to me again. I’ll see what we can do.’_

With that, Jeongin flicked his tail and started swimming again, leaving Felix to follow along behind. After a tense moment of struggling to get his temper under control, Felix pushed forward after the other siren.

That had been better than nothing, at least. Felix could only hope his maturation finished soon because he didn’t think he could wait much longer, no matter what Jeongin said.

* * *

Unfortunately, the next stage of Felix’s maturation did not begin that day, nor the one after it, nor the one after that. He was foully irritable the entire time, the part of him hungry for the secrets Chan held shoving up against his skin, wanting _out_ , and Felix’s patience was at an all-time low.

The last straw was an unexpected one and it broke without warning.

Chan was nowhere to be found when Felix woke that morning, as usual, but he just so happened to catch sight of Chan as he returned to the reef, uncommonly early. Where Chan had been became clear very quickly – he looked lighter, happier than normal and Felix’s heart _burned_. He knew that look, having worn it himself many times, but not since he’d come to the frenzy and Hyunjin and Minho had returned home. The visceral yearning they’d left like a parting gift with Felix had quieted somewhat, its jagged edges smoothed out, and he’d forgotten how much it had hurt to miss them. Now he remembered and he could no more stop a scalding wave of _resentment-envy-hurt_ from engulfing him than he could stop the tides.

Chan’s grace period had officially run out.

Felix surged forward, propelling himself away from the reef with quick, strong strokes of his tail as he rose to intercept Chan. The sun hadn’t started to set yet and reef was far too active for them to have a private conversation there.

Chan slowed to a halt as Felix reached him, well out of the frenzy’s earshot but not line of sight. _‘Felix-mine,’_ he said in greeting. _‘What’s got you in such a rush?’_

 _‘Can we – I need to talk to you about something. Not here, though.’_ Felix glanced back at the reef meaningfully and strangled the guilt that rose within him as Chan’s content expression was wiped away by one of alarm.

_‘Did something –’_

_‘Everything’s fine,’_ Felix said, his words clipped and rough. _‘I just – I don’t want anyone to overhear.’_

He was lying, of course, and he wasn’t surprised that Chan didn’t look entirely convinced. But that was irrelevant now.

Felix didn’t wait for Chan to pick apart the lie, he just started swimming again, further out into the open water until the only possible witnesses around were the denizens of the ocean bustling about on the seabed. Tiny crustaceans, schools of colourful fish, the occasional flicker of something a little larger, perhaps an eel or an octopus in search of food. The presence of two sirens caused some disruption but many of the smallest creatures ignored them, continuing to go about their business.

With a graceful manoeuvre, Chan whipped down in front of Felix, pale green fins and flukes flared to enable his sudden halt. _‘What’s going on?’_ he asked, eyes sharp with concern. _‘Talk to me, Felix.’_

Bitterness was an ugly taste in Felix’s mouth and the hypocrisy of those words needled at him. He didn’t lash out, though, sharply aware that any emotional outburst on his part would only let Chan dismiss him all the easier.

 _‘I will be an adult soon,’_ he began.

Chan softened slightly. _‘You will.’_

 _‘And it seems fitting,’_ Felix continued, heart kicking with jittery nerves behind his ribs, _‘that I should know of the events that took my parents and sisters from me when I was a pup. Do you disagree?’_

As soon as he realised where Felix was going, Chan had stiffened, the movement of his tail jerky and awkward. _‘We’ve spoken about this before,’_ he said flatly.

 _‘No, we haven’t. You make sure of that every time I try,’_ Felix retorted. _‘I have a right to know about –’_

 _‘And one day you will,’_ Chan interrupted, his voice as hard as stone. _‘But today is not that day. You don’t need the distraction or nightmares it will bring.’_

Searing anger scorched Felix’s lungs, leaving him breathless at the sheer _arrogance_ of Chan’s presumption. _‘Don’t you dare tell me what I need,’_ he snapped. _‘That is a decision for_ me _to make, and one I have made alone for_ years _so find a better excuse to hide behind!’_

Chan reeled like he’d been slapped, his eyes blowing wide before narrowing to slits. _‘Enough,’_ he barked, slashing an arm out to the side _. ‘I will not argue with you about this again. Your maturation is all you should be –’_

The sound that clawed its way out of Felix’s chest startled them both, a rasping growl so deep it made his teeth buzz and born of a sheer violence of emotion Felix had never, ever experienced before. The spines on Chan’s arms flared out as though in automatic response and Felix’s instincts screeched their fury at the threat display, the muscles in his tail and abdomen bunching in preparation to _move_.

 _‘They were_ my _family,’_ Felix snarled. _‘How can I understand who_ I _am if you keep them from me?’_

It took Chan visible effort to will his spines down flat again and there was an unfamiliar coldness to him as he said curtly, _‘There is more to this than you realise. You are not ready for it now.’_ His head tipped back slightly, a door slamming shut behind his eyes. _‘I have things to do.’_

The dismissal cut deeply, as it was no doubt meant to, and when Chan turned away without a backward glance, Felix’s entire body jerked with the barely restrained urge to give chase, to pin Chan with his teeth and nails and tail until the secrets he held came tumbling out. But even in his maddened headspace, Felix could recognise the tautness in Chan’s figure as he swam back to the reef. Chan wasn’t stupid – he was _expecting_ Felix to lunge for him.

So, despite the whirlpool of rage tearing Felix apart from the inside out, he twisted away and sped off into the wider ocean. He swam until the cacophony of emotion choking him would not be contained anymore and then he lost an indeterminate amount of time in a blurry state that he couldn’t quite recall the details of afterwards. At least, not beyond an indistinct impression of _fury-betrayal-hurt_.

Besides, the hoarse quality of his voice, the burn in his muscles, and the bloodied tips of his fingers where he’d shattered his nails told Felix enough. With the most violent edge of his anger sheared off, he expected the rest of it to subside once more, giving way to that nagging voice which demanded peace, comfort, safety. The part of him which had been bending over backwards to accommodate the reticence of not only Chan but the whole frenzy.

It did not subside.

As the sun slipped below the horizon, twilight darkening the sea, Felix’s mind did not turn to thoughts of the reef or the consideration that he should start swimming back. Instead, it stayed bright and clear, courtesy of the current of simmering anger coursing through it like an underground river that had finally breached the surface. But what good had it done him? Felix had stood up to Chan today, demanded the knowledge that was his _right_ to have, and nothing had changed. Even Jeongin had told him to wait until his maturation was complete.

Instincts hissed low in Felix’s mind, encouraging him to take this into his own hands. If no-one would help him, he’d just have to do some hunting by himself. Where to start, though? Everyone who knew about the day of the storm was in the frenzy.

_Glittering green eyes set in a human’s face, uncertain, assessing._

Felix stopped.

_‘Where have you come from, Felix?’_

The memory whispered away as quickly as it had come but it was enough. It was _enough_.

With a firm flick of his tail, Felix directed himself up to the surface and broke through near soundlessly a moment later. His nostrils flared as he tasted dry air for the first time in a while and he turned in place, seeking a specific scent. The last of the sunlight was long gone but with nary a cloud in the sky, the stars and waxing half-moon painted the calm water silver and it highlighted several huge shadows in the distance.

_Dry-warm-earthen._

Islands.

His new trajectory held firmly in mind, Felix dipped underwater again and sped towards the nearest island.

It was on the edge of the third island that Felix found a familiar spear of rock jutting up out of the sea. There were no humans present, the water clean of their scent, so he surfaced again, gauging the distance from the rock to the shore. It wasn’t very far but Felix was reluctant to return to dry land. Given the lateness of the night, he might well have to wait until morning before Changbin or Jisung were within earshot, but then again, perhaps not.

The current was gentle here, so Felix managed to sidle up to the buttress without being shoved into the side of it. With a particularly forceful push of his tail, he launched himself out of the water and grabbed the cold rock with his hands, awkwardly manoeuvring up onto it. His new scales slid smoothly over the rough surface, taking no damage, much to his delight.

The night air was mostly still, only a faint breeze coming in from the sea. It was enough to chill the droplets dripping from Felix’s hair and sliding over his skin but he didn’t mind it. Rather, he enjoyed the sharp clarity it brought to his mind, yet unsettled after the argument with Chan. He looked towards the island’s distant beach, the sand a swathe of pearlescent white in this light, fringed with thick shadows from the long, knotted limbs of the trees that curled over it. There were no dunes here, a stark difference from the beach Felix had once crossed to reach the ocean, but in this endless moment of quiet, the tide of memory washed in and could not be rolled back.

Felix remembered hot sand beneath his human feet, the powerful presence of two sirens, like him but not, unwavering at his back. It seemed impossible now that he had ever been so scared of the water that Hyunjin had had to carry him out of it, that Minho had had to swear Felix’s safety to coax him back in. But then, it wasn’t exactly the _water_ he’d been afraid of, was it?

 _‘There are_ no _humans out there.’_

Felix shivered. Then he took a deep breath in and began to sing.

He didn’t shout it at the top of his lungs but it was a piercing song, one that carried across the sea. If the human and the sand child were awake and near the shore, they’d hear him and his tune of beckoning, summoning. At least, Felix _hoped_ they would – he wasn’t entirely sure how far the range of his song extended. And if they didn’t come to him tonight, he’d simply sit and sing until morning. It seemed unlikely that anyone from the frenzy would think to look for him _here_.

The night slipped by, though time might as well have stopped the moment Felix arrived at the island for all he noticed. He wasn’t especially tired, his purpose a steely core in his heart, but he felt himself... drift slightly. After a while, his tail began to itch so he shuffled a little further down the rock until the lower half was submerged in the soothing cold of the sea, flicking droplets up onto his exposed scales with his flukes. His voice eventually gave way and he lapsed into silence, massaging his jaw with one hand in an attempt to alleviate the incessant ache. It didn’t help much but it was better than nothing, especially when he didn’t have any kelp to gnaw on.

The moon sat low in the sky and the horizon was segueing into the deep blue of false dawn when Felix glimpsed movement on the beach. He straightened at once, shaking off the light trance he’d fallen into, and squinted. There was a human on the sand. No, _two_ humans. Even if they weren’t the ones he was after, surely they’d be able to find Jisung and Changbin for Felix.

So he cleared his throat and coaxed out another song. It was rough and weaker than the first but still audible and thrumming with compulsion, not something an unsuspecting human could shrug off easily, and Felix saw the moment it hit the pair on the beach. One of them started walking straight towards the water but the other didn’t, even going so far as to drag their companion back. Felix’s lips quirked up at the sight – unless there was a siren in human skin on the island, that one had to be the sand child. Jisung had mentioned that siren songs sounded like melodies he’d forgotten long ago, faintly familiar, lovely, and not at all compelling.

Now that he had their attention, Felix ceased his song with the expectation that they would swim out to him. However, when neither of them dived into the sea, it occurred to him rather suddenly that it might be too dark for them to safely do so. Irritation flared at the delay and the anger that’d gone somewhat dormant over the course of his nocturnal vigil stirred to life, prickling under his skin. Felix swallowed it back, trying to keep a clear head. He was angry with Chan and the frenzy, yes, but not Changbin and Jisung. They had done nothing to earn his ire.

 _They knew,_ instincts grumbled. _They knew all along. Liars. Secret keepers._

Felix physically shook his head in an effort to dispel such thoughts and pushed off the rock, sliding into the ocean with a slosh. The seabed quickly rose up to meet him as he swam to shore, slowing when he could skim the sand with his fingers. Having no intention of actually leaving the sea, Felix lifted his head and flicked dripping hair out of his eyes to see two familiar figures not far away, the tide washing over their feet. Jisung stood half in front of Changbin and had a protective hand clamped around the human’s wrist, perhaps to keep him from wandering off at the beckoning call of any other passing sirens.

His eyes bright even in the predawn gloom, Jisung blinked down at Felix in shock. ‘Felix,’ he said. ‘We, uh, we weren’t expecting you.’

The danger past, Changbin edged forward, rubbing sleep from his eyes with his free hand. ‘Have you come alone?’ he asked, husky-voiced. ‘Do you need some help?’

‘Yes.’ Tail braced on the sand, Felix pushed himself upright in the shallows and cut to the chase. ‘You both know Chan well. He has told you things other humans do not know.’

He paused and they glanced at each other, identical wary expressions crossing their faces.

‘Chan has told you things he _will not_ tell me,’ Felix said tightly, anger already beginning to bleed into his words. ‘Such as what happened during a certain storm many summers ago that left my family dead and me alone and trapped on an island as a pup.’

Jisung stifled a horrified gasp, slapping a hand over his mouth, and Changbin visibly swallowed. Neither of them spoke and Felix’s lips curled back from his teeth.

‘I _know_ that you know,’ he growled. ‘You have a duty to all sirens, don’t you? So _tell me.’_

‘We can’t,’ Changbin blurted, wringing his hands. ‘It – he swore us to secrecy.’

Felix snarled and they both flinched. ‘You _dare_ hide this from me too? You would keep knowledge that is _mine by right?’_

‘We _promised_ him,’ Jisung said with urgent sincerity. Careless of the very real threat Felix currently posed to him, he dropped to his knees in the surf so that they were eye level, beseeching. ‘Please understand that we’d both tell you in a _heartbeat_ if we could but – but even for another siren, I won’t betray his trust.’

A wave of _yearning-grief-longing_ slammed up against Felix’s righteous fury, knocking the air from his lungs. The human and sand child cared deeply for Chan, such was plain to see, and he couldn’t bring himself to despise them for their fidelity. But that didn’t mean Felix was done here.

‘Your loyalty does you credit,’ he told them, the words slightly mangled by his gritted teeth. ‘But you have what I need and I won’t leave without it, nor will I let you go until you give it to me.’

Beneath the cool water, Felix’s flukes twitched in readiness to lunge.

Fearless, Jisung opened his mouth to reply but Changbin spoke first. ‘Perhaps we could... help you,’ he said cautiously, his face shadowy in the dim light. ‘Neither of us will willingly break our promise but...’ He licked his lips, one hand clenching on Jisung’s shoulder. ‘We could point you in the right direction.’

Jisung and Felix both stiffened in surprise, Jisung twisting back to catch Changbin’s serious gaze. There was a lull as they stared at each other, holding a silent conversation, and Felix tried not to snap his teeth at them in impatience.

Then Jisung nodded and turned back around, his look of desperation replaced by a piercing intensity as he sat back on his heels. ‘Felix,’ he said. ‘Do you know that some of the islands around here are dedicated to specific groups of sirens within a frenzy? Family groups.’

Felix dipped his head sharply. Chan had told him that.

‘The day of the storm...’ Jisung swallowed thickly, clearing his throat when Changbin lightly tugged on a lock sun-bleached hair. ‘For an island to lose the siren family it venerates... there is no greater grief.’ His sea-green eyes held Felix’s, revealing a personal agony that shone stark. ‘No greater failure.’

Cold crept through Felix’s veins, chilling the fire of his anger.

‘The very island becomes a reminder of that loss,’ Jisung continued. ‘Some try to escape it by leaving. Others – others stay, unable to forgive themselves.’

‘Where?’ Felix asked, barely louder than the gentle waves washing past him.

It was Changbin who lifted a hand and pointed slightly to one side of the island they were on now, where only the open ocean could be seen. Felix recognised that direction. That way lay magma siren territory, somewhere Chan had forbidden him to go alone.

‘It sits right on the border,’ Changbin murmured. ‘It’s not large.’

At _last_. At last, Felix had a tangible lead to follow.

‘Thank you,’ he said earnestly. _‘Thank you.’_

Jisung bowed his head for a moment, long hair falling forward. ‘Go. Find your story.’ There was something a little broken in his gaze when he lifted it again. ‘It _is_ yours, after all.’

Anticipation sparked in Felix’s bones and without further words, he whirled around and launched himself away from the island with a powerful push of his tail, his body gliding decisively through the clear water.

Dawn had come and gilded the sea golden when Felix’s journey to the magma-ocean territorial border was interrupted.

He was keeping close to the surface in order to avoid an accidental run-in with any other siren who might be swimming through the area and although the water up here was brightly lit, Felix’s scales were doing a remarkable job of camouflaging him. With the rising sun off to his right, he took delight in watching the play of light around him as he swam, as the frenzy’s general sleeping patterns meant that Felix had had few chances to behold the sea at this time of day. They usually woke later, as the sun crept towards its zenith, and did not rest until long after dusk. Needless to say, fatigue _was_ starting to –

_Burning-searing-PAIN_

A guttural yelp ripped itself from Felix before he’d even processed the sudden stabbing agony in his jaw. It receded somewhat after only a split second but the fierce ache left in its wake was worse than it had been last night, his teeth, his jaw, his entire skull pounding.

Heart thundering in his chest, Felix lifted a hand to his lips and traced his mouth with his tongue, feeling for anything broken, any blood. There was none to be found but his teeth were exquisitely sensitive and pushing on them even gently ratcheted the pain up several notches.

It would seem the next step in his maturation had begun.

Fear immediately followed the realisation as Felix looked at the depths below him, devoid of any living creature larger than his flukes. Jeongin had told him that the arrival of his fangs would be drawn-out and painful, which meant Felix ought to be somewhere safe while it happened, somewhere he could let his guard down while others watched over him.

Somewhere like the main reef. Too bad he was _an entire morning’s swim_ from it.

Panic threatened to crash over him like a tidal wave, smothering and overwhelming, but Felix curled his hands into fists, nails biting into his palms. Now was not the time to succumb to his terror. He needed to find another siren as soon as possible or, failing that, a place to hide and bear this out alone.

Keeping that thought front and centre in his mind, Felix jack-knifed down, flukes momentarily flicking up into the crisp morning air. He altered course, the rising sun diagonal to him now, and swam at breakneck speed, like he had a race to win against Chan. One of the smaller reefs lay somewhere along this route, Felix was sure of it, and there was bound to be someone in its vicinity, so now it was just a matter of getting there before he could no longer swim in a straight line.

Initially, swimming in a straight line was no problem. The thrumming pain emanating from his jaw was bad but not intolerable. The real trouble were the heartbeat moments of excruciating agony that threatened to make Felix shriek, his whole body shuddering helplessly – they were brief, yes, but striking him with increasing regularity. If he was still stuck out in the open when those moments started coming so fast that they formed an endless stream of relentless pain... Well. Felix tried singing as he sped through the water, his song one that cried out for help, in the hopes of grabbing the attention of any sirens he might have missed in his frantic rush. He quickly gave it up, though, as the strength of the wavering calls made his head pound ferociously.

The trip took half of the morning, partly because for the last third of it, Felix was swimming at half speed so his uncontrollable full-body spasms didn’t send him crashing into something or into the path of a strong current that could carry him wildly off course. He found no sirens and by the time the colourful sprawl of the reef came into view, his focus had narrowed to a single goal – _reach the reef in one piece_. Relief flooded him as he made the final approach, just as quickly chased away by a renewed surge of vicious pain that came barely fifty breaths after the last one.

 _‘Is anyone here?’_ he called, his voice hoarse from all the suppressed screams.

No-one replied and Felix’s chest locked tight on the grim realisation that he might be on his own for this.

 _Focus,_ instincts hissed. _Hide. Safety. Now._

Hot on the heels of that followed the next wave. Felix’s spine arched, his tail thrashed, and he nearly smacked a jagged edge of rock sticking out of the reef with the side of his head. This one hit harder, dragged on longer, and an awful gurgling screech ripped out of his throat before the pain lessened. He gave a helpless sob, gills fluttering as he clumsily gulped the ocean down.

_Hide, not safe, hide!_

His movements jerky and uncoordinated, Felix dipped over the side of the reef and found the opening down the bottom which allowed access to a surprisingly big space. Bracing his hands on either side of the entrance in case he had to swiftly move back to avoid whichever creature might already occupy the hollow, Felix glanced inside and relaxed to see it empty of anything except some little pink corals. He pushed himself in and positioned his head at the more open end, hoping it was big enough that he wouldn’t crack his skull on an unforgiving corner of the reef. He’d rather take that risk than stay out in the open water.

_Searing-stabbing-PAIN_

Felix’s fingers dug into cold sand as he twisted and writhed, every muscle in his body locked. His flukes scraped the ceiling and he ground his temple against the seafloor in an instinctive effort to rid himself of the agony scraping him raw. Then it receded again and he collapsed, limp and miserable. If he’d been on land, Felix would have wept. As it was, every part of him ached and stung and burned so he had no way to tell if he was shedding tears too. He lay utterly still but for his unsteady breathing until the next wave hit him. It went on and on _and on_ and he screamed, shrill and desperate. Blood was a heavy, salty taste in his mouth, the liquid thick and cloying on his tongue, and though none of his teeth had been pushed out yet, he didn’t think they would be long coming.

How was he to survive a day and a night of this? How was he to survive this _alone?_ Already Felix was exhausted. He wasn’t sure his mind could handle so much pain and not shatter. If only someone was here with him, if only Minho and Hyunjin weren’t down in the veins of the earth, if only he hadn’t fought with Chan yesterday, _if only –_

 _‘Chan’s kin.’_ Shocked words.

Without lifting his head, Felix’s gaze darted to the opening in the side of the reef and saw an older siren staring back at him with slate-grey eyes. Well beyond shaping his words in to song, Felix whimpered, the sound feeble and pleading.

 _‘Your fangs...’_ The siren blinked. _‘I will call for Chan. If he does not hear it, another will and they will find him.’_

So saying, the siren disappeared from the entrance in a flurry of churned up sand and grey-blue scales.

Felix wanted to beg them to come back, to not leave him alone, but they were already gone and his jaw was pulsing like it was full of magma instead of blood and bone. He hadn’t taken a full breath before this wave hit so his howl was reduced to a harsh groan that hitched and trembled. When the pain lessened slightly – just slightly, not by much now – Felix coughed, blood dribbling from his mouth. With dull surprise, he noted the first of his teeth had come loose, falling lightly to the sand.

Things started blurring together after that.

At some point, the other siren returned but they didn’t try to join Felix in his shelter, instead remaining outside to keep watch. They did, however, extend an arm inside, stroking the backs of their knuckles over Felix’s tense muscles and crooning gently to him. Only his fear of accidentally hurting them kept him from grabbing their hand and clinging to it.

Felix was so out of it that he couldn’t say exactly when Chan arrived. He was alone in the underbelly of the reef until, suddenly, he realised there was someone else curved between him and the back wall. Even with the pungent smell of blood filling the space, Felix knew at once who the newcomer was, the scent of _safe-warm-family_ unmistakeable, and he cried in relief until he was screaming again. When he could breathe once more, his body wilted on the sand and his throat raw, he felt Chan’s flukes sliding over his own in a careful attempt at comfort.

 _‘I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,’_ Chan whispered, sounding beside himself with helpless frustration. _‘You’re doing so well, I’m sorry I can’t ease the pain.’_

Scrounging up the strength to turn his head slightly, Felix looked up at Chan with hazy, heavy-lidded eyes. Anguish was visible in every taut line of Chan’s body and Felix felt an echoing pang in his chest.

 _Don’t be sad,_ he wanted to say. _Don’t be sorry. Your presence is enough._

It was true. Having Chan near gave Felix as much of a sense of security as finding the reef had done. Regardless of how many sirens might be guarding them outside, it was Chan who soothed Felix’s fractious instincts, left him free to focus all his energy on _surviving_ this excruciating ordeal.

Unable to voice any of his thoughts, Felix lifted his flukes a fraction, deliberately brushing them further against Chan’s tail.

Chan’s claws dug into the hard-packed sand, clearly resisting the urge to reach out and touch Felix anywhere he might be especially sensitive. _‘I’m here,’_ he said roughly. _‘I’m not going anywhere, Felix-mine.’_

That was all Felix could ask for, right now.

The only respite Felix got was the short lull between the last of his teeth being pushed out and his fangs coming through. He fell into a state of semi-consciousness at once, exhausted beyond his limits, and was vaguely aware of Chan taking him out of the hollow under the reef. Something about there being too much blood. Even with his eyes shut and his mind adrift, Felix knew that more sirens had arrived because the very water around him hummed with their crooning song. If his head hadn’t been pulsing with a fierce ache, it would have nudged him over the edge into true sleep.

Chan didn’t move them far and Felix distantly presumed he must’ve found another little nook in the reef because the water here was still and quiet against his skin, no longer alive with the voices of the frenzy. The sand was silken beneath Felix but a spark of distress stirred beneath the fog as he belatedly realised that Chan was setting him down, the soft warmth of his hands withdrawing. He couldn’t have opened his eyes if he tried, let alone spoken, but he managed a slight twitch of his fingers, reaching towards where he thought Chan was. After a moment with no response, the hands returned, ever so carefully pulling Felix up so he lay alongside Chan, his upper body cradled against Chan’s chest. His head throbbed angrily at the movement, but Felix sighed, melting into the contact.

Right up until the numbness in his gums was abruptly dispelled by the sensation of his jaws being ripped apart anew and the fun began again.

Felix woke slowly. If he’d had any say in it, he would’ve stayed asleep because his body felt like it had been beaten to a fleshy pulp. He wasn’t entirely sure he’d be able to move ever again, the deep ache encompassing him from head to flukes.

Unfortunately, no matter how much he resisted his gradual rise to consciousness, something kept shoving him onward. Something new, unfamiliar. It pulsed in his bones like a trapped creature, insistent in its demand for freedom but blessedly causing him no more pain. Felix had had enough pain to last him a lifetime, surely, his mind crushing any memory of the past... however long it’d been, refusing to relive the experience. It left him with only faint impressions, vague sensations of screaming himself hoarse, attempting to claw his jaw apart to reach the source of the ceaseless agony, grating his body against the nearest hard surface in a futile effort to distract himself. But for all that he felt stiff, sore, and utterly drained, Felix’s sluggish mind _did_ remind him that he’d been unsuccessful in those destructive urges. Something had – no, that wasn’t right. _Someone_ had stopped him. He remembered a tail coiled around his own, hands clamped on his arms, pinning him down. He remembered a voice sobbing above him, begging his forgiveness, apologising over and over.

The name came to him just as Felix opened his eyes.

_‘Chan.’_

It left him on the merest rasp of sound, all his ruined voice could manage presently, but Felix knew he’d been heard when he felt the water around him stir with the movement of another body. The sand that filled his blurry line of sight was replaced by a familiar face and Felix blinked sluggishly to bring it into focus. Pale green eyes stared at him, intense with more emotion than he could decipher in his current state.

_‘Felix. Felix, can you hear me?’_

Felix blinked again. He replied silently, locking his gaze onto Chan’s.

_‘Are you in pain? Can you move?’_

Yes, he was in pain, though it was not acute. Could he move? Well, Felix would really much rather _not_ but that pulsing in his bones wasn’t getting any less. In fact, it seemed to be getting stronger, louder, until he could almost hear it whispering to him. So he made a preliminary check, flexing his muscles one group at a time, testing the heavy ache against the growing drive to _move_ , to _go_. He winced at the burn but it wasn’t enough to stop him and with painstaking care, Felix dragged his hands up under his shoulders and pushed. The pain in his muscles flared immediately and he hissed, nearly falling flat on his face until Chan grabbed him, rolling him over and helping him sit up. Felix swayed back against Chan’s chest while his tail twitched and shifted, struggling to keep him balanced.

 _‘Well done,’_ Chan murmured by his ear, his voice rumbling through Felix’s skin. _‘Take it nice and gently.’_

Gills fluttering as he breathed heavily, Felix let his head loll back onto Chan’s shoulder, inhaling the comforting scent of _safe-warm-family_. A glance around revealed they were still in a sheltered part of the reef, sand below and coral and rock above them.

 _‘How do they feel?’_ A hushed question. _‘Your fangs.’_

...Oh. That’s right. Fangs. How had he forgotten _that?_

Directing his awareness to his mouth, Felix very cautiously probed at his new teeth with his tongue. They stung slightly, tender yet, when he applied pressure. Tracing them, he found that they were long and sharp, fitting together differently to how his old teeth used to. The memory of Hyunjin showing off his fangs to Felix the first time in the springs flashed across his mind and Felix remembered how excited he’d been to one day have fangs like that, too. How strange that neither Hyunjin nor Minho were here to witness this. Jaw and neck muscles protesting weakly, Felix opened his mouth slowly, noting the feeling of his fangs sliding against one another before parting. No doubt he’d bite his lip or tongue more than once before getting used to them. He raised a hand to touch them with gentle fingertips and a bolt of feral anticipation raced down his spine, coiling electric in his gut. With these, he could _hunt_.

Felix didn’t realise that growl of approval was coming from his own chest until he heard Chan’s soft laughter.

 _‘Soon, soon you will hunt, Felix-mine,’_ Chan purred. _‘We will show you how to catch the most delicious prey of all.’_

That sounded fantastic and Felix couldn’t wait for it, except that what he _really_ couldn’t wait for anymore was to _move_. In a burst of motion that seemed to surprise him more than Chan, he disregarded the fierce ache in his body and shoved himself upright, poised to flee the little cavern. But where was he going?

 _‘Yes, it’s time now.’_ Pale green eyes pinned him in place. _‘You know where to go, Felix-mine.’_

Did he? Felix almost asked but then his mind offered him a mental image of an unforgiving drop-off, ice-cold and filled with shadows that beckoned. His instincts punched to the surface immediately, reaching for the memory as the pulse in his bones strengthened, rattling his whole body.

 _Go go go,_ it chanted. _Deep deep deep._

There was no more time for thought. Felix twisted away from Chan and sank his nails – no, _claws_ into the firm sand and propelled himself out into open water. Other sirens came to attention at his emergence but Felix paid them no heed, speeding away from the reef. He knew where he was going now and anything that got in his way would be ripped to pieces.

It took much of the day for Felix to reach the chasm, the quality of light and slight warmth penetrating down from the surface indicating that sunset was still a way off yet. After the frantic sprint of his journey, he was tired and sore all over, not to mention hungry, but it mattered little. The rhythm that beat in his blood had not relented for even a moment, urging him on ever faster, and now as he paused at the edge of the abyss, Felix wondered if his bones would split and his skin tear, that _something_ within him pressed up against the underside of his flesh in its eagerness for release.

 _Dive deep,_ instincts urged.

Felix wanted to, very much so, but in hesitating he’d given himself a chance to doubt, to look into the depths of this part of the ocean he had no knowledge of and feel a curl of apprehension. What lay down there, out of sight? Was it safe for him to go alone?

 _‘Don’t be afraid.’_ Chan had caught up, floating in Felix’s periphery. _‘I’m coming with you part of the way.’_

Tearing his gaze from the dark water below, Felix glanced at Chan in surprise.

Chan smiled faintly. _‘You won’t need me for long. Come, it is your turn to dive, Felix-mine. Your turn to find the heart of the sea.’_

The words sent a shiver racing over Felix’s skin, one which chased away his budding fears. He could do this. He _would_ do this and he’d do it right now.

Felix dived.

The temperature quickly dropped and Felix’s pulse tripped, speeding up. The shadows seemed to reach out and swallow him whole, drawing him down into their embrace, but he wasn’t blind. There was simply nothing to see except a vast expanse of dark, dark water, none of the reef creatures living down here. Felix didn’t look back, sensing Chan off not far to one side, following at the pace he set. He wasn’t going very fast. Now that he was diving with no intent of stopping, every fibre of Felix’s being hummed in satisfaction, instincts murmuring with indistinct excitement. Urgency had loosened its chokehold grip on his throat.

Other creatures, new ones Felix hadn’t seen before, drifted or swam past, some near and some far, but none interfered with his dive. He slipped in seamlessly to their usual life, noting them only briefly as he went past and down, down, down. The last vestiges of light disappeared entirely, the darkness total, but though he couldn’t see, Felix still wasn’t blind. His hearing sharpened, his skin and scales sensitive enough to feel the slight disturbance in the water of the sea’s denizens. Chan remained a close but unobtrusive presence behind Felix, perhaps using his wake as an easy way to track him.

On Felix went, on and on, down and down.

He could feel himself slowing, the weight of the ocean considerable, and there was a building pressure in his flesh, organs, blood, and bones as his body fought not to be crushed.

 _Further,_ the pulse in his heart whispered. _Further, further._

If Felix could have gritted his teeth, he would’ve but even such slight movements were costing him ever-growing amounts of energy. He couldn’t go much deeper like this. The feeling of being physically ground down beneath the ocean’s might only became more real with every additional tail-length of depth he eked out.

_...when you go as deep as your birth skin can tolerate..._

Forcing water through his gills was becoming dangerously difficult and his flukes were going numb.

_...and then you go deeper._

Felix came to a gentle halt, hanging utterly motionless in the icy water. He could barely breathe, barely think. His body, his birth skin, _could not_ go any deeper. It would kill him. With that acknowledgement, he felt something release inside him and for an instant thought his skin had split and the _something_ in his bones was clawing its way out. But there was no pain.

Just an incredible lightness.

It encompassed every part of him and then... Felix kept swimming down.

Was the ocean flowing around him or through him? Impossible to tell but he could _feel it_. His senses had expanded enormously, reaching out and out through the inky depths, brushing past countless flickers of life and twining with the powerful currents that shaped the seascape. And as he went further down, his senses continued to expand. No, not expanding, but sharpening, refining... deepening. Like they were tuning in to something, a frequency that could only be detected in the heart of the ocean. He could almost hear-taste-see-smell-touch- _feel_ it but not quite. The connection wasn’t forming yet, not stable enough, not _deep_ enough.

So Felix went deeper, his new body, his deep skin handling the depth with ease. The waters around him had fairly emptied of life by now, the sparks pinging against his awareness few and far in between. Mostly, it was just him and the endless expanse of the sea stretching on forever and ever. It could have been an awfully lonely sensation but it wasn’t. Felix felt like a pup returning to the embrace of his mother, though he had no conscious memory of such a thing. To be lonely here, it was an impossibility.

Then all at once –

A feeling of coming together –

Of being whole –

Of _connection –_

And Felix was filled with the most beautiful song he had ever heard. He could not describe it for it defied words and thought alike, spun from a thousand layers that danced together with seamless perfection. If he’d been in his human skin, he would have wept. If he’d been in his birth skin, he would have raised his voice in a piercing cry. But Felix was in his deep skin, so he sang too. Singing in this form was not an exercise in expressive vocalisation, but instead in _being_. As he might breathe in another skin, he might sing in this one.

The song that washed through him, enveloping him as he dived deeper, was infinitely superior to his own, seemingly comprised of so many voices and woven with intricate detail. He felt no shame, however, for the voices grew louder, bolder, more energised by his response. Their song was no longer simply being sung – now it was sung _to_ him and individual strands, specific voices began to emerge from the skein. Voices that knew his _name._

_Felix-Felix-Felix_

His song spiked in volume, surprised upon detecting familiarity in those voices.

_Come-at-last-come-at-last-come-at-last_

Felix’s heart lurched at the depth of emotion wrapped around the words which were not truly words, aching grief and shining joy. He tried to ask who the singers were, why they recognised him, his song a gentle solo next to their thrumming chorus.

 _Missed-you-missed-you-missed-you,_ they sang. _Our-son-our-brother-our-son-our-brother_

He choked, his song stuttering to an ungainly end, and shock punched through him with the unforgiving might of a tidal wave. He stopped swimming.

_Grown-so-well-grown-so-well-grown-so-well_

A wavering note, plaintive and broken, wound its way out of Felix, a disbelieving, desperately hopeful little tune. And theirs turned rich and warm with what could only be love.

_Always-watch-over-you-always-watch-over-you-always-watch-over-you_

Felix started swimming again, going deeper as his heartbroken song began to strengthen. The further down he went, the closer the singers became, the waterfall of their song surrounding him. Not just the voices of his family, but the hundreds and thousands that made up the world-song too. It was almost a living, tangible thing, twisting and spinning with the absolute might of an ocean current, and it beckoned Felix, inviting him to join in the harmony and take his place amongst the choir.

Without hesitation, Felix opened himself to the beautiful song and felt it flood through him, a torrent of overwhelmingly powerful music. Almost at once, he felt too small to hold it, too fragile to sustain it, so he didn’t try to hang onto any part of it, simply letting the song pour through him. It coursed through Felix’s own song, contorting the delicacy of his solitary voice until it hummed with the strength of the ocean and its singers, and his deep skin buzzed from end to end. None of his physical forms were built to cope with such a fury of raw power, the buzzing an indication that he was nearing his limit.

But when Felix would have pulled back, afraid of pushing himself past a brink he could not return from, the voices of the world-song crooned sweetly to him, binding him with silken tendrils to the ocean’s heart.

 _Stay-stay-stay-stay-stay-stay_ , he heard echoed a thousand times.

It would be an easy offer to accept, on the promise of a blissful existence spent without fear or anger, his sole purpose to help maintain the balance of the sea through the medium of song. An endless song of _life_ , drifting with the other singers and unfettered by even a body, his consciousness merging with theirs so he would never ever be alone again, and really, how could he resist? There was no reason to, nothing to hold him back.

His deep skin trembled with the hum of too much power, ready to split apart and melt away, taking his birth skin and human skin with it. Only when he had left everything else behind could _he_ become _them_ , the ocean demanding he turn over the vestiges of his alone-self from his fins to his fangs to his name to his –

His name.

His _name_.

What _was_ it?

 _Become-one-with-us-become-one-with-us-become-one-with-us,_ the singers murmured but he was distracted, his song discordant.

He’d had a name, he knew this, a title for his alone-self which –

That was wrong, all wrong. He wasn’t alone. He might exist by himself within his own head, no chorus of singers there, but he was not _alone_. There were others, those who called his name and listened for an answer. Who were they? Where were they? Did they call him now?

The buzzing sensation reached a peak, its final point –

He stopped singing and for a single moment, silence echoed in his mind.

 _Felix_.

That was his name.

The inexorable strength of the world-song continued to pour into him, building and building, seeking a release –

 _My-name-is-Felix-and-I-will-not-join-you-this-time,_ Felix sang, his voice barely holding together against the ocean’s thousand-fold singers.

They pushed back, urging him to release his name and accept them into himself.

 _My-name-is-Felix-and-I-will-not-join-you-this-time._ It came easier this time.

Still, the singers were not convinced, reminding him that if he became a part of the ocean’s heart he would never feel the bitter chill of loneliness again, and had he not had enough of that to last a lifetime?

 _Not-alone,_ Felix countered, his song stabilising with his surety. _Have-lost-my-birth-family-but-I-have-another-family-and-they-know-my-name-too._

 _Alone-here-alone-here-alone-here-alone-here-alone-here_ , the singers crooned, challenging him to recall his family who had not joined him here.

For a terrifying moment, Felix couldn’t bring the names of his chosen family to mind, still struggling to keep the details of himself together in the face of ever-flowing world-song. He remembered being alone for a long, long time, hiding from the world in pools of hot water, lost and afraid, with no-one to call his name.

But he _wasn’t_ there anymore and he wouldn’t be ever again. Felix lived in the sea, he swam the currents as part of a frenzy, and he slept with the dearest of his family in a reef bursting with life.

 _Chan-Chan-Chan,_ Felix sang, the name cutting through the voices of the singers with ease. _Chan-waits-for-me._

The relentless strength of the world-song began to withdraw from Felix, unable to pour through him when he was already full with the attachments of this life.

Emotion, poignant and bittersweet, rushed into him and with it came flashes of memory, two tails wrapped around his, dark eyes boring into him, affectionate names that were not his own and yet referred to only him. Their own names weighed heavy upon his tongue and Felix gladly voiced them.

_Minho-and-Hyunjin-I-wait-for-them._

Another flicker of memory, one that stung his heart, an instruction not to wait, to move on with his life but Felix threw off the slight pain and sang louder. His voice rose and fell in a piercing call, a melody of longing and beckoning that flowed freely from his core, for he had no intention of letting these two slip away. They would be his family until they should ever reject him.

With that, the world-song left Felix entirely. The voices that gave it life, singing it through the heart of the sea, withdrew more slowly. As Felix finally began to swim upward instead of down, the singers buoyed him along, still singing alongside him, if not _with_ him anymore. They forgave his departure easily, farewell turning their many-layered song a touch mournful.

_Will-return-to-us-will-return-to-us-will-return-to-us-will-return-to-us_

It was not a question and Felix didn’t treat it as one for he, too, had the visceral understanding that one day, he _would_ return and never resurface. Then he would join his birth-family as an eternal voice in the ocean’s choir. But today was not that day and he did not slow his return journey up through the immense weight of the sea.

In what seemed like no time at all, Felix reached the furthest edge of his connection to the ocean’s heart and when it faltered and broke, he had to fight not to give into the urge to go straight back down. The cold waters around him suddenly felt empty in a way they had not before. But they were not and after a while, Felix remembered how to find the tiny sparks of life that lived even at such a great depth. He used them as a guiding light, a reminder that he was not alone here and now, and nor would he be when he rose to the surface.

Eventually, Felix reached the point where the weight of the ocean gentled enough that his deep skin no longer felt like the right one to be wearing. It was built for the crushing depths below. He went a little further up and then drew out his birth skin, allowing it to wrap around him and tuck his deep skin back into his bones, where it could not drift away. The change was odd and for a moment Felix felt far too heavy and weighed down, never mind the intense pressure of the sea hammering against him. But then he flexed his muscles, gulped a breath, and beat his sleek tail through the cold water and his ascent continued.

It was impossible to tell when exactly the light started filtering through again but all of a sudden, Felix realised he could see. Not well enough yet to rely on his eyes over his other senses, but enough that he knew the surface wasn’t far now. Faster and faster he swam, his song unwavering. The sea became busier, more creatures comfortable with swimming or diving to this depth, and with them came more light and an ease of movement Felix was used to, his body spearing upwards.

Then, backlit by the surface of the sea gone pale with dawn, Felix saw shapes, indistinct figures floating in place, waiting. Waiting for him. It was the closest of those figures Felix recognised, pale hair glinting in the weak light, and it was that one he swam to. His song came to a sudden, muffled end as he drew level with Chan and without a moment’s pause threw himself at the other siren. Chan sounded like he was half laughing, half crying as he staggered under the force of Felix’s arrival, wrapping his arms so tight around Felix. It was like their first meeting all over again, back at the start of winter.

 _‘You were amazing, I knew you would be,’_ Chan whispered fervently into Felix’s hair. _‘I knew your deep-song would be the most beautiful I’d ever heard.’_ He choked out a wobbly breath of laughter. _‘I’m so proud of you, Felix-mine.’_

Felix crushed Chan to him, eyes squeezed shut as he curled himself around Chan, sucking in great gulps of his scent. It was as he’d told the chorus of the ocean and himself too. He was not alone.

 _‘I heard them,’_ he mumbled, face tucked into the curve of Chan’s neck. _‘They sang to me and then I sang_ with _them. My sisters, my parents, the other singers.’_ It was a wondrous, bittersweet memory, one he’d treasure for the rest of his days.

Clawed fingers threading through his hair, gently tugging Felix’s head up so Chan could look at him. _‘I am glad, and I thank you for choosing to come back to us. It must have been very hard.’_

Felix shivered at the echo of the awful loss that had engulfed him when his connection to the world-song and its singers had broken, but then Chan kissed his forehead and warmth chased away the phantom pain.

 _‘Come, you are an adult now.’_ Glowing pride and affection laced every word. _‘What would you like to do?’_

The question was spoken louder, inviting the dozen or so congregated sirens into their little bubble, and Felix felt the weight of their attention on his shoulders. He thought of the sharp new fangs in his mouth and the growing hunger in his belly, though it wasn’t urgent yet. He thought of Chan and the secrets he still kept, but that too was no longer urgent, not now that Felix had a lead of his own to follow. He turned his mind to the exhaustion that dragged at his bones, the longing for his and Chan’s cavern in the main reef.

 _‘Right now?’_ Felix glanced around with a faint smile. _‘I would like to go home and sleep.’_

* * *

_(‘Do you hear that?’_

_‘I thought it was just my ears playing tricks.’_

_‘Well, maybe mine are too because it almost sounds like –’_

_‘Agreed. Do you think – should we follow it?’_

_‘I think winter is on its way out.’_

_‘Excellent! What are we waiting for, then? If we’re lucky, we won’t even freeze our tails off.’_

_‘But... will he be happy to see us? I told him not to wait.’_

_‘You know there’s only one way we’re going to find that out.’)_

* * *

Waking was a decidedly more pleasant experience this time than it had been last time. The aches and pains in Felix’s body had been washed away, leaving him feeling relaxed and well-rested. He opened his eyes to the familiar sight of his and Chan’s cavern, the warmth of an equally familiar body pasted to his back, their tails loosely intertwined. In no rush to get up, Felix simply basked in the contentment that filled him, listening to Chan’s quiet breathing. He was an adult now. He had his fangs and his deep skin, finally a full-fledged siren of this frenzy. No-one could take that from him, no-one could treat him like a wayward pup anymore. This was his _birthright_.

As was the knowledge of what had happened to his family so many years ago.

Felix felt something solidify behind his sternum, something granite-hard and smooth as polished stone. He craned his neck, glancing back over his shoulder to make sure that Chan was as deeply asleep as he sounded, before very carefully extricating himself from the arm and tail slung over him. There was a brief moment when Chan stirred at the disturbance, fins twitching, and Felix hardly dared to breathe, but he soon stilled again.

Heart thudding in his throat, Felix slowly manoeuvred himself to the exit so as not to create any sudden fluctuation in the water. He poked his head out and saw no other sirens, but that was unsurprising – judging by the pale quality of the light, it couldn’t be long after dawn. Felix must’ve slept an entire day and night after returning to the reef from his dive and now he was wide awake while the rest of the frenzy slept. Really, he couldn’t have planned it better if he’d tried.

It was strange to leave the reef so quiet behind him but Felix firmly turned his attention away from it. He had a destination in mind and it would take him an entire morning of hard swimming to get there, a little longer if he paused to catch a snack. A full meal could wait until this was done. With that thought in mind, Felix spared no effort as he cut through the sea, smooth and calm except where he disturbed it. It seemed both a lifetime ago and yet only yesterday that he’d set out from Jisung and Changbin’s island armed with the slivers of information they could give him without violating their promise to Chan. In an ironic sort of way, it was almost funny that his maturation had chosen _that_ moment of all possible ones to finally spring the next stage on him. But it was done now. There was nothing left to get in his way.

So intent upon his journey was he that Felix barely took the time to marvel at how much more effective his claws and fangs were at dismembering prey than his nails and teeth had been. Somewhere between the second and third fish he caught, however, he did consider that catching a human would probably be much easier like this. If he were to entice a pack of them after him, Felix didn’t think Minho and Hyunjin would have to save him this time. He knew what to do now.

The sun was just creeping past its zenith high in the cloud-free sky when Felix caught sight of an island not far away, positioned neatly in line with the frenzy territorial border. He gradually slowed his approach, scouring the area for the imprinted scent of any sirens, either magma or ocean. Unusually, there were none, the water clean and empty to his nose.

_...there is no greater grief. No greater failure._

Felix’s heart clenched at the memory of Jisung’s bleak words. Perhaps that was why there was no evidence of any sirens passing through in recent times. It wasn’t impossible that the humans weren’t the only ones avoiding such a stark reminder of the loss they had suffered.

This island had a beach smaller than the ones Felix had previously seen. The narrow strip of sand was bracketed by large jumbles of tumbled rock and earth that stretched back to the steep cliffs on either side. The wall of trees and foliage that overhung the beach seemed, even from this distance, a little thinner than the dense forestry of the island Felix had once thought of as home. He kept watch in the shallows for a while but saw no sign of human life anywhere and smelled only the salt of the sea and the dry softness of the island itself.

Instincts buzzed in his gut, impatient. There was no reason to delay any longer. Felix swam to shore, creating nary a ripple amongst the gentle waves as he remained scrupulously below the surface of the sea. Upon reaching the edge of the beach, he sat upright slowly, senses on high alert for anything untoward, but the only response to his arrival was the breeze rustling through the treetops and the cries of the birds as they dived for fish. Throat dry, Felix unfurled his human skin, felt it settle securely over him, and pushed to his feet. It’d been quite some time since he last practised the strange balancing act that was walking but after a couple of near-misses, he got the hang of it and made his way towards the trees.

Close by the right-hand edge of the beach, tucked up against a trio of boulders at least three times Felix’s height, was a path. It was made not of materials but by the passage of many people over a long period of time. Having no wish to battle his way through the uncharted forest alone, Felix approached it, pausing when he noticed something by the start of the track. A small structure that had clearly been arranged with intent, built of stones and pieces of driftwood each about the length of his forearm. On the little plateau inside it lay five shiny white pebbles, which he recognised as pearls. Jeongin liked pearls. Apparently he had quite a collection of them. Felix regarded these ones for a moment, having a vague sense that this meant something significant, before moving on.

The path was well-worn, its slope blessedly gentle and the ground reasonably flat, and Felix had no trouble walking it. A light wind raced up the tunnel through the trees provided by the track, chilling his wet skin and raising goosebumps, but he didn’t mind it. Besides, the early afternoon sun provided plenty of warmth where it caught him in the gaps between the dappled canopy overhead. Aside from his hair, which remained damp and cool, Felix was mostly dry by the time the path widened out, the trees thinning rapidly and then giving way entirely. He now stood at the top of a slight slope which rolled down into a village, the air thick with the scent of _danger-sweat-hunger-want_.

A dozen or so islanders were visible, some walking from place to place, some seated and doing odd things, some standing and talking together. Felix stayed where he was, watching them, and a few moments later one of them saw him. The woman had a stack of woven containers held in her arms and she halted as Felix caught her eye. He imagined he must look strange to her, a newcomer with pale hair and blue eyes, so unlike her own, and not a stitch of clothing on him. She stared, visibly confused, and then her eyes widened and the containers tumbled to the ground.

‘Siren,’ she gasped, the sheer awe in her voice carrying easily across the space.

Felix tensed his muscles against the urge to shiver, keeping himself very still as she dropped to her knees and burst into tears, hands clasped to her mouth. The other islanders were quick to notice the commotion, all of them turning to follow her gaze. One by one, they beheld Felix and sharp cries of shock rippled through the group, brown faces blanching and dark eyes staring in disbelief. Many of them joined the woman on her knees, some weeping quietly while others sobbed. Even those who stayed standing bent forwards into repeated genuflections. The noise drew more humans from their houses and the surrounding area, their reactions to Felix all the same – astonishment, incredulity, wonder. The few children scattered about seemed a little more confused, though they were quick to follow the actions of their families and Felix saw startled understanding cross their young faces as they heard the murmur racing around the assembled village.

 _Siren, siren, siren_.

There was fear visible in some of the more ashen faces, too, as well flickers of joy and grief. The tension gathering in the air was almost palpable, an aftertaste on the back of Felix’s tongue as the islanders stared at him.

Then one of them stepped forward, a broad man with streaks of grey in his hair and beard. He knelt and bowed deeply, forehead brushing the earth, before straightening and sitting back on his heels.

‘Welcome, blessed siren,’ he said, his voice filled with the strength of someone used to wielding authority, though it was currently hoarse with emotion. ‘You honour us with your presence. I am Shin Seunghyun, head of this village, and I beg you to allow me to offer my sincerest apologies on behalf of us all for our failure to perform our duty as protectors and guardians twenty years ago.’

Despite the shining sun, the day was not an especially warm one and yet Felix saw sweat glistening on Shin Seunghyun’s temples.

‘The crime is unforgiveable so I will not ask your forgiveness, but, please –’ taut shoulders, white-knuckled fists on his thighs – ‘if it is punishment you come to mete out, let me be the one to bear it.’

‘No, Seunghyun!’

Both Seunghyun and Felix jumped at the sudden cry as a woman burst out of the deathly quiet crowd, her expression desperate. She dropped immediately into the same deep bow the village head had, but did not rise, her long plait sprawled on the ground beside her.

‘Please, blessed siren, do not take my husband alone,’ she begged. ‘I will bear whatever punishment you deem fit alongside him.’ She lifted her head enough to look up at Felix, her eyes glittering with unshed tears. ‘But our people, please, spare them. They have been dedicated and steadfast in their atonement these past years.’

Someone in the crowd was crying again, the sounds partially muffled as though by hands or cloth. Seunghyun glanced between his wife and Felix several times, his face paling rapidly under its natural bronze colour, but the woman’s focus did not waver from Felix.

Felix, who was himself in a state of total shock. He’d had little idea of what to expect from the people here upon his arrival, but this certainly wasn’t it. The bleak expression he could see on so many faces, however, was familiar – Jisung had worn it when he told Felix about this island in the faint light of predawn several mornings ago. How exactly he was meant to respond to this, Felix had absolutely _no_ idea but even the seething mass of impatience writhing in his belly could agree that something had to be done here before he demanded his answers of these people.

‘I am not here to punish you,’ Felix said, his words falling heavily into the hush. ‘I have no interest in harming any of you –’ he raked his gaze across the wide-eyed crowd – ‘unless you had a personal hand in the deaths of my family.’ His lips peeled back from his teeth as soft gasps rippled through the air, returning his attention to Seunghyun and the long-haired woman. ‘Who among you all knows the most about what happened that day?’

‘That – that would be Choi Eunmi,’ Seunghyun stammered, his eyes almost comically round.

Felix narrowed his eyes at the gathered islanders. ‘Choi Eunmi,’ he called. ‘Where are you?’

There was some shuffling about and then a short woman wrinkled with age and clad in stark white emerged. She bowed, knotted hands clasped in front of her, and raised her dark eyes to Felix, moisture glinting on her cheeks.

‘Blessed siren,’ Eunmi rasped. ‘How may I be of assistance?’

At last, Felix strode down the slope towards the islanders, rocking to a halt a mere half dozen tail-lengths away. ‘Tell me,’ he demanded, ‘what you know of my family’s murder.’

Eunmi trembled, ducking her head for a moment, and Felix thought he’d frightened her, but when she looked up there were fresh tear tracks lining her face and her breathing was rough. Grief was very nearly a tangible scent about her.

‘You must be the littlest one, blessed siren,’ she murmured. ‘I saw you only once as a babe.’

Felix stiffened, caught between conflicting desires. Part of him wanted to recoil from the unbearable softness in her voice, while the rest of him lunged at the lure of information he could use to fill in the many holes in his memory, in his identity. Who he was and who he’d once been.

‘It was I who found the desecrated body of your mother washed up in a tide pool,’ Eunmi continued, the words dragged from her like they physically hurt to say. ‘And it is I who teach the young ones how to care for the shrines we built for you and your family.’

An image of the small structure of stone and wood that housed five glossy little stones on the edge of the beach flashed through Felix’s mind and he was certain that was one of the shrines. He _burned_ to ask more but he was distinctly aware of the large audience who were witness to this conversation.

‘I saw the one on the beach,’ he said. ‘Where are the others?’

‘One guards the tide pools on the other side of the island,’ Eunmi replied. ‘But the main shrine...’ She pointed diagonally behind her, towards another path that skirted the village and disappeared into the trees up a hill. ‘It is in a sheltered place,’ she continued, ‘where it can see the water below.’

‘Take me there.’

She dipped her head in acquiescence but before she’d even turned around, there was the sound of quick footsteps and then Seunghyun’s wife appeared beside Eunmi.

‘Somin,’ Seunghyun began anxiously, but she paid him no mind.

Felix raised his brows at her in askance.

‘Blessed siren, I ask your permission to come with you and Eunmi on your journey to the shrine,’ Somin said, uncowed, ‘for the walk is steep and she requires help to climb it safely.’

Well, he couldn’t fault her for being protective, could he?

‘You may join us,’ Felix told her, ‘but only to the end of the slope.’ He didn’t want anyone listening in to what Eunmi might tell him.

Somin sketched a shallow bow and then she and Eunmi started towards the narrow track. Felix turned back before following them, taking in Seunghyun’s tense posture and the wide range of emotions visible in the gathered villagers. Tentative hope appeared once or twice and it made him think of Jisung again.

‘I will return with them,’ he promised Seunghyun. ‘They won’t be harmed.’

Seunghyun silently bowed once more and Felix went after his guides, who weren’t very far ahead. Their pace was slow and he bit his tongue sharply to keep from hurrying them, the nervous anticipation simmering in his blood growing as they rounded the village and began the trek up the hillside. Shadows fell cool across Felix’s bare skin as the forest canopy arched overhead once more, birdsong springing from every tree to surround the trio in a cacophonous chorus, and he felt a prickle of déjà vu. The last hill he’d climbed had had no trail to follow but with two sirens at his sides who seemed to know the terrain back to front, Felix had never been in any danger of getting lost.

Fortunately, the trip wasn’t a long one and Felix shoved away the increasingly morose thoughts creeping into his mind as the slope flattened out and the women paused at a bend in the path. He drew level with them and saw a natural plateau up ahead, the forestry kept at bay around its edges but for a few, hardy plants springing out of the weathered rockface walling off the terrace’s left side. A raised structure, presumably the shrine, sat at the far end of the plateau.

‘I will wait here, blessed siren,’ Somin said, deliberately turning her back to the shrine.

Felix nodded, his attention already past her. Eunmi quietly thanked Somin for her help and then continued across the plateau, Felix still trailing behind her at a healthy distance. The pounding compulsion to rush in was tempered by a strong vein of caution that hummed through Felix, its roots entrenched in the long past events he’d come here to learn about. As he and Eunmi approached the shrine, a break in the trees surrounding the plateau presented a perfect view of the sprawling ocean down below, its surface twinkling in the sunlight. The shrine itself had two steps leading up to it and was made of stone and wood, large enough to fit a few humans inside. It had no walls, four mighty logs holding roof over what lay inside.

Eunmi stopped a short distance from the shrine, lifting her gaze to Felix’s. ‘We built this and the others in the days after the murders, blessed siren, and I was appointed their guardian. The children will look after them when I am but dust in the earth.’

Swallowing through a tight throat, Felix walked over to the steps, his skin flushing both hot and cold, and climbed them with deliberation. He had a strange awareness of standing on the edge of a precipice and knew he must take great care not to fall, but when a salt-laden wind whipped around him, tousling his hair, Felix couldn’t tell if it came from the sea or from over the precipice.

Not that it mattered, not now.

The shrine itself came up to chest height and was shaped like a small table with three tiers, reducing in size as they went up. Over the bottom tier lay a neatly folded and draped cloth, teal like the scales on Felix’s tail and woven with unfamiliar patterns around the edges. Pinning it down were two tall earthenware jars which boasted fresh flowers swaying in the breeze, the blooms of various sizes and coloured white, yellow, and purple. Nestled in the cloth between the flowers were another five tiny white pearls, shimmering in the light. They were cool to touch, their texture perfectly smooth.

On the middle tier sat an arrangement of five rough-carved wooden figurines, two twice as large as the other three. They were featureless, except for the distinct suggestion of a human torso and fish tail, and Felix’s heart dropped like a stone at the sight of them. He picked up one of the smaller figures, cradling it with utmost care in his palm and staring at it until his vision began to blur. There was no mistaking what these symbolised. Grinding his teeth, Felix blinked away the unwelcome excess moisture in his eyes but the violent surge of emotion it was borne of could not be so easily pushed back. He set the figurine back down before he accidentally crushed it.

Felix looked to the shrine’s top tier and he stopped breathing. The air simply froze in his lungs.

This shelf was bare but for a wide, shallow shell, ribbed like a clam’s. In the shell, stark against its creamy hue, was a handful of tiny dark blue objects immediately identifiable as siren scales. They were clean, washed free of anything that might have been attached, but the knowledge that these scales had once adorned the tail of another siren was enough to send a shudder through Felix, a visceral concoction of _grief-pain-anger_ holding him tight in its teeth. If the voices he’d heard during his dive hadn’t been proof enough of the deaths of his family, this was. A human couldn’t simply _find_ two dozen siren scales.

The roar locked in his chest was held back by the absolute slimmest of margins and Felix could feel himself shaking like a leaf in the wind. Steeling himself, he lifted a hand to touch the scales, hesitating a mere hair’s breadth away. He swayed, the precipice’s edge beckoning him.

 _Mine,_ instincts snarled. _My family, my scales. No-one else’s. Mine!_

Felix brushed the pads of his fingers over the scales and sensory information slammed into him, a _knowing_ that burned like fire scraped over raw nerve endings.

It was his mother. _She_ had once worn those scales and _she_ had bellowed like thunder when the churning water around her turned red, staining her beautiful tail. She, who had fallen silent when a huge hooked spear of metal had suddenly plunged into her chest, cleaving her open in the most terrible of ways.

The noise that ripped out of Felix’s throat was closer to a scream than any other song he’d ever done before. It shrieked through the air, a piercing ribbon of sound that grew louder, broader, deeper. His mind emptied of rational thought, every part of him locked in sheer desperate disbelief at the sliver of memory he’d regained, that his mother had died at the hands of _humans_ who’d gone hunting with most vicious intent.

And if his _mother_ had died in such a way then surely that meant the same for his father and sisters.

Boiling rage flashed through Felix’s veins, igniting his blood, and he barely felt the cuts his nails gouged as he clenched his fists. His lips threatened to split, his throat to tear from the force of his song and he _did not care_. Beyond the shrine, the plateau, and the trees, the glittering ocean caught his gaze and Felix screamed-sang _to_ it. A pack of wretched humans had _dared taint his home with the blood of his family_. Felix wanted to rip every last one of them apart with his fangs and watch as the life drained from their eyes.

The song _pulsed_ , rocking Felix’s taut body. He sang louder, careless of the response he might be provoking.

Another _pulse._ In this one he tasted the sea in the back of his mouth.

On the third _pulse_ an alien awareness shivered to life deep, deep within him.

A fourth _pulse_ , and Felix could _feel_ the ocean responding to his fury, the currents whipping into a frenzy and generating vengeance-hungry waves to crash against shores where moments ago there had been only calm.

The song _pulsed_ again, and an enormous wave began to build off the island’s coast, rearing up high, high, high. It thundered towards the bluffs on which the shrine’s plateau sat, growing in force and might as it travelled. The sea was reaching for him, trying to wrap in its embrace and soothe the awful pain hollowing him out, and Felix welcomed it. He called it closer, urged it faster and bigger and stronger, felt the wave shiver in response, ready to devour all that stood in its way –

_Hot-sharp-rich-safe._

His song faltered.

_‘Felix!’_

Felix didn’t even have time to think their names before two solid weights crashed into him, just about knocking him headfirst into the shrine until an arm snapped around his waist and kept him upright. He turned but another arm was wrapping around his shoulders and he found himself hauled into a fierce embrace, his face shoved into the crook of a neck before he could find theirs, long black hair a damp curtain brushing his skin. His gaze zeroed in on the heartbeat racing under a thin layer of skin beaded with the sea or perspiration and Felix sucked in a deep breath, basking in the familiar scent.

It was only as he tried to figure out how to speak both their names at once that Felix realised he’d stopped singing and his visceral connection with the ocean had broken. At exactly the same time –

‘Hyunjin, I’m sorry, but the wave –’

‘I’ve got it.’

Felix was so caught up in savouring the sounds of their voices, proof that they were _here_ , it took him a moment to register the import of what’d been said. Then he realised he could feel a subtle rumbling in the air and hear the faint roar of the colossal wave he’d dragged to life – and it was still heading straight for the island. He broke out of the embrace, twisting towards the sea in alarm.

Just as Hyunjin walked to the edge of the shrine, inhaled deeply, and _sang_.

His song was rough and his voice cracked a couple of times as it stretched in a way it had clearly not for a long time, but it was unmistakeably an _ocean_ siren song. Felix froze, eyes wide and mouth agape as he watched the tidal wave seemed to slam into a wall before being sucked down into the body of the sea, water spraying high like a mountain had been dropped into it. Hyunjin suddenly coughed, the song dying as his voice gave out. The surface of the ocean continued to swirl, agitated and unsettled, but at least there were no more huge waves on the way.

Shock buzzed through Felix, his fingertips twitching. ‘Hyunjin?’

Hyunjin turned, chest rising and falling jaggedly. ‘Felix,’ he panted. ‘You gave us quite a scare.’

With a start, Felix remembered the man at his back and he whipped his head around so fast he nearly sprained his neck. ‘Minho,’ he whispered.

Minho’s smile was small and cautious, his gaze assessing, but Felix drank the sight in greedily. It had been so long since he’d seen either of them and he could hardly believe that they were here now, that they’d _come back_ to him.

‘So, what happened?’ Minho asked warily.

Felix blinked, his mind struggling to catch up. ‘What?’

‘You nearly flooded half an island _by yourself,’_ Minho said, brow furrowing slightly.

Oh.

Felix opened his mouth but nothing came out, his lungs devoid of air.

‘Is this... a shrine for _your_ family?’ Hyunjin asked quietly, staring at the shell and handful of scales it held.

_Oh._

A blistering concoction of _grief-pain-rage-loss-loss-loss_ punched Felix in the chest and he burst into tears. Hot, sticky tears and hoarse, ragged sobs that shook his shoulders. He swayed and collapsed, falling to his knees, barely noticing the sharp sting as he cradled his head in his hands and cried. The details might forever be lost to him but now Felix knew at least _what had happened_. He knew why he had spent so long alone and lost, why sirens and islanders alike shied from the memory of this place, why Chan couldn’t bear to even speak of it. So Felix mourned, the sorrow in his heart at what he’d lost overflowing until the tears seemed to run like a waterfall down his face.

Light footsteps, murmuring voices, soft touches. Minho crouched at Felix’s side and drew him into a gentle embrace, bracing him as the strength in Felix’s body failed. Hyunjin sat at his front, shoulder to shoulder with Minho, and offered a hand for Felix to hold and cling to, an anchor in the storm of anguish scouring him. Felix accepted their support without hesitation, letting them surround and protect him while he grieved. Distantly, a small part of him noted that neither magma siren made any attempt to quiet his crying, to stem the flow of tears and cease the heaving sobs, and Felix felt a flicker of appreciation. It was his right to mourn the tragedy that had orphaned him.

It was a while before Felix began to calm and by the time his tears had stopped, his eyes irritated and raw, he felt hollowed out. The sensation was strange but as he refocused on his surroundings – the thrum of Minho’s pulse under his ear, warm skin on his, the faint harmony of a dozen songs or more melding with the rhythm of the sea – Felix decided it wasn’t a bad one. It was as if he’d cried the brunt of his grief and anger out of himself, leaving him lighter and his mind clearer than it’d been in quite some time.

Taking a long, deep breath that hitched only once, Felix sat up, releasing Hyunjin’s hand as Minho’s arm slipped from his back. He rubbed his eyes and dragged his palms over his cheeks, wiping away some of the sticky salt water drying there. Then he lifted his head and looked at the two sirens sitting close by him, who appeared to have hardly changed at all since their departure, their bodies firm and whole, tiny points of obsidian gleaming on their wrists. Minho watched Felix with sharp eyes, tension fluttering in the tightness of his jaw, while the corners of Hyunjin’s mouth were pinched with concern. Felix resisted the sudden impulse to reach out and tug on a lock of Hyunjin’s tangled wet hair to make him smile.

‘Hello,’ he said, a little raspy. He debated being honest for a moment before boldly adding, ‘I’m glad you both came back.’

Minho made a noise, a quiet huff of laughter, and Hyunjin said, ‘Looks like we were just in time to rescue you again, Felix.’

He froze as soon as the words left his mouth, regret splashed across his expression, and Minho shot him an incredulous glance.

But Felix snorted and didn’t fight the minute smile tugging at his lips. Hyunjin was right – they’d rescued him. He had no problem with that because needing rescue was a very different thing to needing saving, and he certainly didn’t require _that_. That, he could manage all on his own.

‘I’ll try not to make a habit of it,’ Felix replied easily and they relaxed slightly.

‘Are you alright?’ Minho asked, significantly less confident and collected than Felix was used to seeing him. ‘If Hyunjin was right about this shrine...’

Felix nodded. ‘He was. The islanders here built the shrine after my family was murdered by outsiders.’ There, he’d said it and though he faltered briefly, the wound a very fresh one, he didn’t scream or cry. Swallowing past the lump in his throat, he continued, ‘The human who led me here, Eunmi, she – she found my mother. After. Apparently she, um, washed up on the island.’

‘Oh, Felix, I’m so sorry,’ Minho murmured, tone thick with sympathetic grief.

Hyunjin shifted in place, like he’d been about to reach for Felix but had held himself back. ‘Did you get all the answers you were looking for? Surely Chan could fill in some of the gaps.’

Felix’s mouth twisted bitterly and he sighed, shoving the ugly emotion back. It had no place here. ‘I don’t have them all. I’m not sure I ever will.’

Hyunjin made a questioning noise in his throat and Felix shrugged a shoulder, looking past him across the plateau where he could see Somin and Eunmi kneeling on the ground, holding each other.

‘Chan won’t talk about this. It’s too painful for him,’ Felix said, and after seeing how badly it’d affected the people here, he couldn’t blame his cousin for that. ‘But _they_ will.’

With that, he pushed himself to his feet again, teetering for a moment until he found his balance. He took a step towards the stairs, Hyunjin and Minho scrambling up out of the way, only to pause, glancing back at the shrine. The flowers swayed in the breeze and the ends of the blue cloth fluttered, but it was the shell and its precious cargo that caught Felix’s attention. If this was all he ever had of his mother, of his birth-family, he couldn’t just _leave_ the scales behind. They belonged in the ocean.

Felix picked up the shell, holding it carefully in both hands as he left the shrine and approached the human women. Somin stood and immediately moved in front of Eunmi, both of them maintaining their handclasp as Eunmi rose more slowly. Shock, alarm, and a little fear had paled Somin’s brown face, her gaze darting between the three sirens before settling on Felix.

‘Blessed sirens,’ she murmured, inclining her head without taking her eyes off him.

Despite Somin’s obvious wishes, Eunmi stepped out beside her and bowed, echoing the greeting.

‘Thank you for bringing me to the shrine,’ Felix said. ‘It was... hard to witness it.’ His fingers tightened around the shell. ‘You have guarded my mother’s scales well but I will take them now.’

Somin stiffened and Eunmi’s eyes widened in distress, but Felix wasn’t done yet.

Raising a gentling hand to the both, he continued, ‘It is time for them to return home, as I have. Your atonement is complete. I forgive you for the loss of my family.’

The words flowed easily from Felix’s tongue and despite the raw emotions still whispering through him, teasing the edges of the open wound in his heart, it felt good to see _awe-joy-relief_ brightening the faces of both women.

‘You do us a great honour,’ Somin said, shaken, and she bowed more deeply this time.

‘I want to hear everything you know about – about that day,’ Felix said, stumbling briefly, ‘but not here.’

Eunmi’s brow furrowed in confusion. ‘Blessed siren, if you wish for privacy then –’

‘There are more sirens on their way,’ Felix interrupted. He couldn’t hear the singing from the ocean anymore and he smiled slightly as Minho and Hyunjin stirred in surprise behind him. ‘Rather than have them all rush up here and frighten everyone down in the village, I think we should go down and meet them, don’t you?’

The group reached the bottom of the hill to see that the villagers had moved much closer to the start of the shrine’s path, though none of them had made any move to climb it. The people were on their feet now, expressions anxious, talking to each other in hushed voices. And, evidently having just arrived on the other side of the gathered islanders, Felix glimpsed a very wet Chan, accompanied rather unexpectedly by a comparatively dry Jisung and Changbin. Seunghyun was hurrying through the crowd towards them when someone spotted Felix and the others.

‘They’ve returned!’ the human cried.

Attention was split immediately between the sirens approaching from both ends of the village, some heads swivelling indecisively, but Chan solved that problem as soon as he caught sight of Felix. He dodged Seunghyun and sprinted to the foot of the hill, islanders scurrying out of his way. Somin and Eunmi fell back, the object of Chan’s focus obvious, and when Hyunjin and Minho made as though to step up alongside Felix, he shot them both a firm look and shook his head, walking forward a few paces to meet Chan alone.

‘Felix,’ Chan gasped, chest heaving as he skidded to a halt in front of him, Changbin and Jisung likewise hanging back. ‘Are you alright? I felt – we _all_ felt the sea react when you called it.’

He had a frantic air about him, eyes a little too wide and hands trembling at his sides. A shudder rolled through him as he briefly dropped his gaze to the scales Felix carried and Felix wondered if this was the first time Chan had been here since the attack.

‘I’ve been worse,’ Felix replied neutrally, doing his best to keep his posture both non-defensive and non-aggressive. A small part of him wanted to bare his teeth and growl but mostly he just wanted to wrap Chan in his arms and hold him tight. ‘Minho and Hyunjin stopped me flooding the island. How did you get here so fast?’

Chan licked his lips, attention momentarily flicking past Felix to the magma sirens, and he shifted restlessly on the balls of his feet. ‘I woke early, found you gone.’ He laughed once, strained and without humour. ‘When I couldn’t find you... You scared me. I went to see Jisung and Changbin. They came by boat.’

‘Ah.’ That was the second time in not very long Felix had been told he’d scared someone. ‘You know I’m an adult now, right? I can look after myself pretty well. You need to stop worrying every time I disappear for a bit.’ He tilted his head, trying to convey the depth of his sincerity as he held that pale green stare. ‘You’re not my keeper, Chan-mine.’

It was perhaps the first time Felix had ever seen Chan break eye contact in such a situation, his chin dropping and his shoulders bunched. Everyone had moved back by now, for which Felix was very thankful, but he took another step forward, placing him toe-to-toe with Chan as that wonderful scent of _safe-warm-trust-family_ filled his lungs.

Holding the shell in one hand, Felix lifted the other and cupped Chan’s jaw and tilted his head back up, waiting until Chan looked at him again before saying very quietly, ‘I’m not angry at you, not anymore. I’m still not happy that you didn’t tell me about what happened but I’m not angry.’ He couldn’t be. ‘And I don’t hate you either, so get that expression off your face.’

Chan had the audacity to look startled, his eyes glistening, and Felix didn’t restrain the wordless snarl that bubbled out of his throat before clamping his hand on the back of Chan’s neck and hauling him down for a hug. Chan’s arms came up around him immediately, practically winding him with how tight he squeezed, and Felix might’ve complained if he hadn’t felt fresh moisture on his skin when Chan bent his head to the crook of Felix’s neck. His own eyes dangerously full of tears, Felix swallowed hard, determined not to cry again. Not here, not now.

Distant or not, there was no forgetting their audience and Felix knew that Chan was far too private to allow himself more than a moment’s weakness in such a public setting. So he wasn’t surprised that Chan’s eyes were dry when he lifted his head and broke the embrace.

‘Now,’ Felix murmured before Chan could speak, ‘I’m going to go and talk to a couple of the islanders about their experience of the attack. If you want to come and add your story to theirs or just listen, you can. If you’d rather stay here and wait, be nice to these people, alright? I’ve forgiven them and that means the whole frenzy has. Otherwise, I’ll see you –’

‘I’ll come with you.’ Chan glanced around them, turning slightly pink as curious faces quickly looked away. ‘And I’ll... I’ll tell you what I saw that day.’

‘Good,’ Felix said, then reached out and sharply pinched the end of Chan’s nose.

Chan yelped and jerked backwards. ‘What was that for?’

‘A reminder,’ Felix replied, eyes smiling, teeth bared, ‘that I’m not weak.’

A dozen or so sirens, those who’d been singing the sea back to a state of calm after Felix had so thoroughly stirred it up, started arriving only moments later. Among them were Jeongyeon and Jihyo. Despite Jeongyeon’s clear displeasure at being here and Jihyo’s vocal concern about Felix, he and Chan were soon able to convince them that all was well and there was no cause for alarm.

‘I haven’t heard a song so strong since your father last sang,’ Jihyo told Felix, a little wide-eyed after he explained what had happened. ‘We thought there might’ve been another attack.’

Felix flushed in chagrin, squirming in place. ‘Sorry,’ he muttered. ‘I didn’t mean for, well, any of this to happen.’

Jeongyeon raised a brow, her impenetrable stare boring into him. ‘If there is any fault here, it lies with us. Tradition has its place, but it should never have been left to Chan alone to tell you the story of your family’s death.’ She turned to Chan, standing quietly next to Felix. ‘I know the responsibility of your duty has weighed heavily on you this season. I am sorry that we did not help you bear that burden.’

Chan blinked once, twice. ‘Forgiven and forgotten,’ he said at last, and Jeongyeon inclined her head.

‘We will leave you to your business here,’ Jihyo said after a brief pause, ‘and will let it be known that this island is no longer in mourning. It will join the archipelago again, as will the humans who live on it.’

She and Jeongyeon began to make their way back to the sea. Felix stared after them, teetering on the brink of a decision.

‘What is it?’ Chan asked, when he didn’t move.

‘Just – nothing,’ Felix rushed out. ‘I just have to say something to them. You go back to the others, I’ll join you in a moment.’

Without waiting for a reply, Felix broke into a run, careful not to lose any of the blue scales in the shell and catching up to the frenzy leaders before they reached the rest of the sirens waiting for them. They heard him, of course, and both stopped, turning back.

‘Felix? Is something wrong?’ Jihyo asked, but he wasn’t looking at her.

He stared at Jeongyeon, pulse fluttering in his throat. ‘Chan said forgiven and forgotten.’

‘He did,’ Jeongyeon replied in a measured tone, unblinking beneath Felix’s scrutiny. ‘It is a formal acknowledgement of an apology received and accepted.’

‘I won’t forget,’ he blurted. ‘It isn’t my place to forgive you or not, but I won’t forget how much your silence cost Chan and me.’ _Do better next time,_ he couldn’t quite force himself to say.

Jeongyeon didn’t so much as twitch a muscle for an agonisingly long time, sweat breaking out on the back of Felix’s neck as his instincts squealed in alarm. But he didn’t back down and, eventually, she dipped her head very slightly.

‘You have more courage than I realised,’ Jeongyeon finally said. ‘I understand and I accept the debt you give me, Felix.’

Felix nodded, lips pressed tightly together to restrain the feeble sounds of submission fighting to escape, then spun around and hurried back to where Chan, Jisung, and Changbin were waiting with Minho and Hyunjin, and Seunghyun, Somin, and Eunmi.

Changbin and Jisung both had slightly guilty looks about them and their gazes were furtive when they turned them on Felix, who imagined they were worried he was angry at them for revealing their conversation with him to Chan. As he’d never expected them to keep his visit a secret, their fears were for naught. That was a matter which could wait to be dealt with, however.

When Chan glanced at him questioningly, Felix studiously ignored the look and, turning to Eunmi, wasted no time in asking her to show him to the tide pools where she’d found his mother. She agreed and he asked if there were any other islanders, Seunghyun and Somin included, who had their own story to tell about that day. Seunghyun shook his head and said there were not – Eunmi had collected all known details in order to recount them to the sirens at the time. So it was she alone who would guide Felix and Chan to the pools on the island’s edge, leaving Somin and Seunghyun to speak with their people, many of whom were completely overwhelmed.

Before they started off, Chan pulled Jisung and Changbin aside, presumably to discuss what they would do now. Despite the budding kinship Felix was feeling with Jisung in particular, he wasn’t ready to let them in on this. While Chan handled them, Felix had two people of his own to talk to.

‘If you want,’ he said to Minho and Hyunjin, who’d been very quiet as all this was going on, ‘you can come with us. I mean, I’m sure your frenzy is expecting you to return at some point, so if you have to go, that’s fine too.’

‘Let’s get one thing clear,’ Minho said pleasantly, while Hyunjin levelled Felix with a distinctly unimpressed look. ‘Unless and until you send us away, neither of us is going anywhere, Felix. If you are comfortable sharing such a painful part of your history with us, we would be honoured to accompany you and Chan.’

Felix stared at them both and they stared right back. ‘You – you told me not to wait for you,’ he choked out past the boulder suddenly wedged in his throat.

‘And yet, we find ourselves hoping, hoping, _hoping,’_ Hyunjin said softly, ‘that you did anyway.’

A strange, desperate sound clawed its way out of Felix’s chest.

‘There will be time for _that_ conversation later,’ Minho said, shooting a narrow look at Hyunjin. ‘This here, this is about you, Felix, not us.’ He smiled very sweetly. ‘Just know that we will be behind you every step of the way.’

Seunghyun and Somin had already bowed goodbye and moved off into the crowd, Chan and Eunmi were waiting a little way away, it was already mid-afternoon – but Felix was helpless to stop the words that slipped past his lips.

‘Don’t call me that.’ His hands tightened convulsively around the shell. ‘Please, if you mean it – don’t call me by my name.’

Minho shivered, hands curling into fists as the muscles in his body flexed and jumped. His lips parted, but it was Hyunjin who found his voice first.

‘Little one.’ Hyunjin beamed that brilliant smile of his and he bounced on his toes. ‘Though you’re not so little now, are you?’

Felix’s breath caught in his chest.

‘Sweetheart.’ It was almost soundless, more the suggestion of a word than a true one.

It was enough for Felix, however, and with cheeks surely as pink as Minho’s, he tossed his head in the direction they were headed before promptly taking the lead, walking briskly until he caught up with Chan and Eunmi.

There was little talking amongst the group as they followed a different track down from the village and along the coast. The terrain was not overly rough but it was enough to keep Felix fully focused on maintaining his balance. He had three sirens keeping an eye on him, of course, but he didn’t ask them for help, didn’t reach for a hand to hold every time he wobbled. As Minho had said, this was about _him_. If an old human could walk this path without assistance, then so could he.

The sun was hidden behind the treetops of the island’s hills when Eunmi guided them out onto a wide rocky outcrop that overlooked the sea. In the coolness of the shade, the wind whipping in off the water was particularly cold and Felix felt a familiar ache throb deep within him, his birth skin pushing to take over. On either side of the outcrop was a short but precariously steep slope dotted with hardy grass tussocks that led down to a sprawling flat of tidal pools. The barnacle- and oyster-encrusted rock shelf holding the pools extended quite some distance out and wrapped around the shoreline before abruptly giving way to deep, choppy water. The tide was retreating now, no longer high enough to cover the shelf, but the pools were full.

Eunmi walked to the end of the rock outcrop, strands of fine grey hair escaping the bun at her nape and dancing in the wind. She didn’t seem to mind the cold either and Felix drew level with her, a dreadful anticipation churning in his gut.

‘The storm was fierce that day,’ Eunmi said quietly, staring out at the shadowed pools. ‘No rain to start with, but winds strong enough to knock people down, thunder so loud it was a wonder the sky didn’t split, and waves taller than any man were rolling in from the ocean. I was not far from here, hurrying back to the village, but I came here first because the children like to play in the pools. The storm had come in quickly, perhaps they hadn’t left yet.’ She hesitated, glancing at Felix and away, pointing to one of the biggest pools that lay near the edge of the shelf. ‘I saw her there, halfway in, halfway out. The water had washed away the blood but I could see her chest and...’

Felix remembered the snapshot he’d seen earlier, fingers brushing over his mother’s scales. The metal spear that had gutted her would’ve left a huge hole in her chest, a wound from which there could be no return. The thought of her pain and horror at the gruesome injury, only to succumb to it and be swept away from her smallest child by the merciless wrath of the storm... The ache in Felix’s heart pulsed, burning sharp.

‘Others arrived minutes after I did, sweeping the island for stragglers,’ Eunmi continued. ‘They are likely the reason I wasn’t swept away by the sea. I hadn’t waited, I hadn’t called for anyone else before going down to her. What was a storm in the face of a murdered siren?’ Anger, old and worn, sharpened her tone. ‘I knew from her injuries that her death was not natural. She had been _killed_ in her own home, this place of land and sea that my people and I have had the honour of protecting from outsiders for centuries. But we didn’t know where the crime had occurred, we didn’t know if there had been other sirens with her, if we should be expecting them or her murderers.’

‘So you carried her to shore,’ Felix surmised faintly, somewhat astonished that he was able to speak at all. ‘You – you kept her safe until her frenzy came looking for her.’

Eunmi nodded. ‘It was nearly evening by then and the rains were lashing down hard enough that I couldn’t even see the treeline. We had the siren in a bath in one of the houses. It... didn’t seem right to leave her on dry ground.’

‘My parents came for her.’

Felix flinched in surprise, having forgotten Chan’s promise to talk. A glance over his shoulder revealed Chan’s expression was flat and distant, his gaze fixed on some far off point, Minho and Hyunjin sombre beside him.

‘I was too young to go with them and besides, I wasn’t exactly in much of a state to be going anywhere,’ Chan said. With what seemed like a great effort, he dragged his attention to Felix. ‘We were meant to meet you. We were all going hunting together in the storm. Then we heard the screams, scented the blood.’ He swallowed convulsively, once, twice. ‘I got there first and there they were. The bodies of my uncle and two cousins floating in –’

His voice cracked and broke and Felix thought Chan was going to break down in tears. But Chan only dropped his head briefly, fair curls of drying hair sliding forward to hide his face, before straightening up again, every line of his body taut with contained emotion. He met Felix’s gaze for a single heartbeat, green eyes glittering, and Felix found himself wondering when Chan had last had a chance to grieve the terrible loss they’d both suffered. When had Chan’s parents first departed the reef? Had they held their child close and comforted him before they left him behind?

‘There was a boat,’ Chan continued eventually, his voice as rough as a handful of gravel. ‘It must’ve carried at least a dozen humans. They had weapons, some of which fired metal spears and some of which fired small, deadly bullets. I could’ve died too, but they were distracted. _Celebrating.’_

Felix shuddered, his stomach rolling with nauseating intent, and Hyunjin bared his teeth as a low hiss emanated from his throat. Minho stood almost as rigid as Chan, the scowl on his face darkly menacing.

‘Other sirens had heard the screams as well. They arrived not long after my parents and – and they slaughtered the humans together.’ Blazing green eyes met Felix’s again, binding him tightly. ‘The _only_ reasons those monsters managed to kill your family were that they caught you by surprise and your mother and father had three pups to protect. For all their weaponry, the humans stood no chance when the frenzy started ripping them apart.’

The most vicious part of Felix slammed up against the underside of his skin, roaring in bloodthirsty triumph, but the rest of him felt almost numb, scarcely feeling the chill of the wind gusting past him. He stared at the scattering of midnight blue scales in the shell and all Felix could think about was that he and his mother had both been swept far from the attack, washed up on separate islands, only he’d been alive and she’d been dead.

‘They should not have been there,’ Felix whispered, barely audible over the blustery wind, the comment more to himself than anyone else. His instincts had shrieked that at him when he first tried to enter the sea last autumn, warning him of something that did not belong.

Eunmi said something more about the two sirens who’d come to collect their dead during the storm, how open they’d been in their grief, but Felix was momentarily distracted by movement in his periphery. Hyunjin had stepped closer, his beautiful face pinched with the same riot of emotions simmering under a thin layer of false calm in Felix’s heart, and he unobtrusively reached out to place a hand on Felix’s upper arm, squeezing gently. The comforting contact sent a rush through Felix, prickling his skin and warming his blood. He met Hyunjin’s gaze and glanced beyond him to Minho, saw the muted pain and empathy shining there, and dipped his head in a jerky nod. It was all the acknowledgement he could give right now but they didn’t seem displeased and Hyunjin withdrew his hand, though his attention remained fixed on Felix.

‘Would you like to visit the pool, blessed siren?’ Eunmi asked softly.

Felix blinked, trying to remain focused on what was happening and not get lost in his own mind. ‘Yes.’ It felt important that he should see the place his mother had been thrown from the sea, her final resting place before others had taken her body.

Before Eunmi led them down to the tidal pools, she offered Felix a small drawstring pouch so he could carry the blue scales more securely. It was woven tightly enough that they wouldn’t slip out but that they’d also be visible when inside the bag, and Felix was quick to accept it. Upon transferring the scales, he hummed in wordless thanks to Eunmi and let her show him how to tie the pouch’s strings around his wrist if he didn’t want to hold it. Felix left the shell on the bank and, as they all picked their way down onto the shelf, he noticed another little shrine tucked into a nook between the rock and earth. His gut clenched to see the five pearls that lay within, but he didn’t pause.

The walk to the pool was short but precarious, the ground underfoot full of pitfalls and covered in little hard-shelled creatures cemented in place. Many of the pools they passed were filled with plant life and tiny, darting fish, but Felix’s attention was caught beyond them. Waves crashed close by, the spray arcing through the air to fleck his skin, an enticement, but he wouldn’t be distracted.

Instincts muttered in the back of his mind, restless and agitated, and the others hung back as Felix sank into a careful crouch right on the pool’s edge. It was certainly large enough to fit an adult siren and the water was deep, its inhabitants shadowed by the setting sun. Of course, there was no sign of Felix’s mother’s final visit here. No spilled blood, no fallen scales. It could’ve been any other pool along the coast. The surface of the water was still for a moment and Felix caught glimpse of his reflection, all tangled hair and solemn eyes. Holding his own gaze, he dipped the woven pouch into the pool and watched as he splintered into a dozen pieces, while the scales in the bag twinkled in a way they had not in dry air.

A feeling of rightness settled over him, a soothing balm against the more abrasive emotions bubbling within him. These scales belonged in the sea, in the cold, tempestuous waters of their home. Not so long ago, Jeongin had told him that when a siren died, their body was taken deep, deep down and gifted to the ocean itself. From the ocean they came, and to it they returned in death. Felix shivered, recalling the world-song singers who’d coaxed him to stay with them. His mother had joined their ranks, as had his father and sisters, he was certain of that. Slivers of dark blue winked up at him and Felix knew what needed to be done.

Straightening up, Felix faced the others. Minho, bristling with anger and a raging protectiveness that burned the breath in Felix’s lungs, and Hyunjin, worried and so sad. Chan, more than a little strung out and hollow with aged sorrow, and Eunmi, both relieved and very tired.

‘Thank you,’ Felix said to her, husky with barely restrained emotion. ‘For guarding my mother and for the – the story you have given me.’ _Perhaps I can finally lay it to rest_ , he didn’t say.

Eunmi bowed her head to him and her wrinkled face creased into a smile. ‘Blessed siren, the honour will always be mine.’ Then she bowed to each of the other three sirens and, understanding the dismissal, began to make her way back to the bank.

Felix turned to Chan, stepping in close to him and taking his hands. ‘Thank you for speaking,’ he said quietly.

Chan blinked slowly, a veil of fatigue seeming to drape over him, like all the strength had gone from him. ‘Why are you saying that as though you’re about to send me away too?’

‘Because I am,’ Felix replied with a brief flicker of a smile. ‘I need some time to myself. A lot’s happened today and I just...’ He swallowed around a pulse of grief, the numbness starting to come apart at the seams. ‘I’ll come back to the reef when I’m ready.’

Chan regarded him for a long moment, before admitting, ‘As you so rightly told me today, I’m not your keeper. That doesn’t mean I won’t worry, though. I suppose I’ll just have to trust you to look after yourself.’

Felix nodded. ‘You will. Go and stay with Jisung and Changbin, alright? They’ll keep you company.’ Memory of the bleak expression in Jisung’s bright eyes a mere few days ago flashed through his mind. ‘And tell Jisung for me that he can put down that shame now. The failure has been – what was it? – forgiven and forgotten.’

One thick brow rose high, a look of curiosity sweeping across Chan’s face, but then his posture sharpened and he cut a sidelong glance in the direction of Hyunjin and Minho, who stood far enough away not to eavesdrop on the hushed conversation. ‘So. Your magma sirens have returned, hmm?’

Heat crept up Felix’s neck and ears but he only rolled his eyes. ‘They’re not _mine,’_ he grumbled. ‘And their return is nothing unusual. Spring is on its way, isn’t it?’

‘But it’s not here _yet,’_ Chan countered, ‘and magma sirens do so hate the cold.’

Well, there wasn’t a lot that could be said to that, although Felix hadn’t forgotten Hyunjin’s extremely unexpected ability to sing like an ocean siren. That, however, was not for Chan to know.

‘It doesn’t displease me or anything,’ Chan quickly added, misinterpreting Felix’s silence. ‘Whatever’s going on between you three, I mean. I just want to, you know, make sure you’ve thought this through.’

Felix stared at Chan, who had the good grace to look a little abashed and the bad grace to not retract his statement. ‘I _have_ thought it through,’ he hissed. ‘And I’ve decided that I’m the only one who has a say on my thoughts and feelings about them, which, I’ll have you know, are very –’ he cast about for a suitable word – ‘fond.’ Close enough.

Lips curving up into a slight smile that didn’t quite reach his eyes, Chan muttered, ‘Serves me right for asking. I said much the same when questioned about my intentions towards Jisung and Changbin.’

‘Wait, you _what?’_

‘Do what you need to do, Felix-mine, and make sure you come home in one piece. I’ll be watching for you.’

With that, Chan released Felix’s hands and stepped around him before jumping straight off the edge of the shelf into the swirling sea, vanishing below the surface. His flukes flicked up into view only long enough to splash a faceful of water at Felix before he sped away back around to the other side of the island, carving a path through the choppy waves.

Finally, Felix turned to the magma sirens, but Hyunjin beat him to it.

‘Thank you for inviting us to join you here,’ he said, dark eyes gentle. ‘I hope that what you learned today has helped you – well. I was going to say “understand who you are”, but you’ve been doing that all on your own, haven’t you, little one?’

Felix’s flush returned in full force, flashing hot across his skin. He’d forgotten that was a thing again now. ‘I’m glad you came,’ he replied. ‘I don’t want to – to just sing about it everywhere but I don’t want this to be treated like a terrible secret that no-one can know about. My family deserves to be remembered.’ He glanced between them, chewing the inside of his cheek. ‘Thank you for sharing this burden with me. I’m sure it wasn’t, um, easy, listening to all that.’

But nevertheless they _had_ and something deep in Felix’s core sighed in satisfaction at that.

‘It is no burden,’ Minho refuted softly. ‘But if it weighs on you, then I’m happy to help you carry it. We both are.’

Felix nodded in wordless acknowledgement.

‘And now, do you mean to leave us too? So soon after our arrival?’ Hyunjin asked.

He was definitely teasing but Felix felt his brow furrow with momentary concern anyway. ‘I do. I didn’t mean to but –’

But now he had a handful of his mother’s scales and far too many emotions to deal with.

Minho edged a little closer, still missing that unshakeable cloak of surety and conviction he’d always worn in Felix’s presence. ‘You don’t need to explain. It’s our turn to wait for you now.’ Dark eyes, turned almost black in the rapidly fading light, locked on Felix’s. ‘If you’ll let us.’

His heart skipped a beat and Felix inclined his head. ‘Wait for me, then. I’ll come and find you after.’

‘Where, little one?’ Hyunjin smiled, the ends of his long hair dancing in the wind, clearly enjoying the effect he was having.

‘Our island, of course,’ Felix replied, snorting faintly when both Hyunjin and Minho went wide-eyed in shock. ‘I remember there are pools like these ones near the beach.’

‘We’ll see you there,’ Minho said, sounding slightly strangled. His hands twitched at his sides but he made no move to reach for Felix. ‘Whenever you’re ready, sweetheart.’

His pulse a pounding rhythm that urged him away, away, away, Felix nodded again. Then he dived into the sea, changed skins with a tingling rush of relief, and swam.

* * *

Felix did not stop swimming until well into the night. He’d let his route take him onto the magma siren side of the territorial border so he wouldn’t run into any nearby ocean sirens and then he simply swam as far and fast as he could until his body, already tired from the morning’s long swim, demanded rest.

Not that he got any to start with.

The area Felix stopped in was open and flat, with little in the way to offer shelter or protection, and as he cast about for somewhere with at least partial cover for him to sleep by, the final shreds of the numbing veil dissolved. His mad rush of a journey through the sea had helped him keep himself together, driven on by an unrelenting urgency, and now that he’d slowed, the rapid beat of his heart calming? There was nothing to hold the tangled mess of emotions back.

All it took was one cursory glance at the pouch hooked over his claws and Felix choked like he’d been kicked in the chest.

His search for his family was over. He held all that remained of them, of his mother, in one hand. Their murderers had been eviscerated by siren claws and fangs and now all that was left of that terrible attack was him, Felix, on a mission to give a handful of scales the mourning rites.

Felix thought he’d finished his crying for the day back at the site of the shrine on the island but he was swiftly proven wrong. Chan and Eunmi’s words were stark in his mind and at the thought of his sisters’ and father’s bodies drifting, broken and bleeding, through the storm-tossed ocean, Felix gave up any pretence of being able to avoid this. He curled in on himself, sinking down to the soft sand, and wept. Crying in this skin was different than in his human skin – there were no tears and the sounds tearing free of him were raw, guttural wails. It was like a song, one of sorrow and grief.

No other creature disturbed him and the area was quiet but for his warbling cries which seemed to echo through the dark waters. It was fitting that he should be alone now, with only the sea to embrace him, only his own arms and tail to wrap around himself. Felix had spent so much of his life thus and besides, this was closest he’d ever get to feeling the touch of his mother, his family, again. He sang his song of mourning, a multi-layered lament that occasionally shrieked high with rage, his claws digging into the sand, but mostly crooned deep and low with the desolation of acceptance, until his throat ached like the wound that had been gouged into his heart.

When Felix’s crying trailed off, his voice hoarse, he was exhausted. In body, mind, and soul, he wished for nothing more than to rest, to close his eyes and escape for a while into the quiet of sleep. But he was out in open water with no-one to watch his back, so he forced himself to move, fingers curled tightly around the pouch of scales as he pushed off the sand. The whole area was fairly barren so it was unlikely to get too many animals passing through, which in turn meant Felix was probably safe from any roaming shark shivers, and only a very hungry shark on its own would go after an adult siren.

It wasn’t long before he found a sudden step down, a drop perhaps one tail-length in height. As the rolling sand plain continued unabated, the drop was practically invisible from a distance, so Felix lay down by it, pressing his back against the wall. He half-buried the pouch beneath him and used his flukes to scoop up some sand and pour it over his torso and tail to help him blend in. Then he shut his eyes and went to sleep.

Felix was hungry when he woke. It was unsurprising, what with the amount of travelling he’d done the previous day, not to mention all the emotional energy he’d expended. He felt oversensitive, like he’d been scraped raw inside, so he didn’t give his mind a chance to get trapped in the mire of yesterday’s events. From the quality of the light shining unimpeded through the water above, he reckoned it was probably mid-morning and after digging out the pouch and shaking it free of sand, he swam off in search of food.

The sun was well past its zenith by the time Felix had caught and eaten enough to keep him going for the next day or so. That was partly down to a lack of practise at solo hunting, especially bigger prey, but it was also because he was distracted. His thoughts refused to be redirected away from all he’d learned at the island for long, turning back to circle the subject despite his best efforts. It was almost like a fever dream, only no dream of his had ever been so painful.

Grief, anger, loss, these all echoed within him, cutting and cruel, and Felix winced at their force. He managed not to let them drag him into an all-consuming whirlpool of emotion again, however. There was a reason he was out here alone, wasn’t there? The slight weight of the bag of scales in his hand seemed to grow heavier, reminding him of his responsibility to find another chasm like the one at the edge of his frenzy’s territory.

If Felix had learned anything about underwater terrain this winter, it was that the ocean tended to get deeper the further out from a reef or island one went. Now, he might not have been paying much attention to his surroundings last night, but he had noticed that any such landmasses on this side of the territorial border were much more spread out than on his side. He’d caught no sign of any nearby during his mad dash away, away, away and while he’d come across a few coral and rock structures that might be the beginnings of reefs, none came anywhere near to being large enough to house anything more than a small octopus. Hopefully that meant that if Felix simply kept going in the same direction, he’d find the edge of this immense plateau sooner rather than later. It was all he had to go on, anyway, so after his food had settled, he resumed his journey.

No longer driven by a fierce need to flee as far and fast as he could, Felix went slower today. Not enough that he was in danger of turned his focus inward and losing himself to the volatile current of emotion still running through his heart, a river barely contained by its bank, just enough that he could take in the seascape around him. Exploring would have to wait for another day, one when he did not accompany the final remnants of his birth-family to the heart of the ocean, but Felix didn’t think they’d begrudge him taking a little longer to get there. After all, it was only last autumn that he’d discovered how far beyond the limits of the hot springs the world could extend and there was still so much for him to see, to learn.

How far had his mother travelled? How much of the world had she seen? Perhaps she’d been one of the ocean sirens to patrol the magma territory during the wintertime and she could’ve told Felix exactly where the nearest deep point was. Maybe she’d preferred to stay closer to home, familiar with the nooks and crannies of the ocean siren half of the archipelago, or she might have liked to find new places to explore every day, swimming far from the confines of her frenzy’s territory. Felix’s heart filled with another sorrow at that idea – he remembered Chan telling him that his own parents were roamers, never content to settle anywhere long. Chan had been solemn with old, old anguish then and Felix couldn’t help but wonder if Chan’s parents had left the reef because of the same memories that haunted their son. He fiercely hoped that Changbin and Jisung were looking after Chan right now and that, most importantly, Chan was _letting_ them.

A sudden current of icy water rippled past Felix and he slowed immediately, turning into it. The temperature around him was cool, as expected, but _that_ was cold enough to have come from the deeper ocean, which could herald only one thing. He beat his tail harder to swim against the flow of the current, intent on following it back to its source, and lo and behold, it was not long before Felix came to the abrupt end of the plateau. The drop-off was sheer, plunging down to the shadowy depths in which creatures larger and more dangerous than reef-dwellers lived.

Felix floated over the edge of the chasm and lifted the woven bag, peering between its coarse strands at the glimmering scales inside. Unpicking the drawstring with delicate claws, he pulled out a scale, felt it so smooth and brittle, and his chest constricted. When he’d asked Jeongin about the mourning rites, his friend had told him as well that when a siren died, their name was no longer spoken. To become one with the world-song as the souls of all ocean sirens did, everything of physical life had to be given up, something Felix now knew from experience, so it would be highly disrespectful to use the name that had once belonged to the deceased.

This meant that the handful of scales he held now was truly the very last remnant of his birth-family, outside of the memory of the frenzy and the islanders. Turning over these scales to the sea was synonymous with turning _them_ over. Part of Felix, the bit that didn’t trust the happiness he’d found with Minho and Hyunjin, with Chan, with the frenzy, that feared waking up one day only to discover he was still trapped and alone in the hot springs, it snarled in furious rebuttal. His mother’s scales were the first and only piece of tangible evidence he had of her existence, proof that _he_ was tied to something outside of himself, something more. Why should he give that up?

The scale winked and glinted in the shifting light and Felix felt the tide of _rage-sorrow-pain-loss_ creeping in again, clogging his throat and making it difficult to breathe. Why should he give these shards of midnight blue up? Because they weren’t his. Not truly. He was, at most, a temporary caretaker. His mother was dead and so the scales belonged to the heart of the ocean. It was his duty to return them and his right to say goodbye.

Squaring his shoulders in determination, Felix gripped the neck of the pouch to ensure none of the other scales slipped out, keeping the one he’d plucked out safe in his closed hand, and then he dived.

Down, down, down. Past the schools of fish, a solitary shark, the flickering ribbon-like eels, the semi-transparent jellyfish, even a pair of hunting dolphins. Down to where it was pitch black, bitterly, blissfully cold, and the weight of the sea grew heavy against Felix’s birth skin. His already slow pace decreased further and as the last hints of light disappeared entirely, his other senses expanded. He wasn’t far from the changeover point, where he’d have to bring out his deep skin so as not to be crushed, but Felix didn’t plan on going that far. It would make releasing the scales too difficult and he wasn’t sure he could physically hold them in his deep skin.

So Felix let himself drift to a stop before movement became a serious challenge, suspended still and silent in the all-encompassing embrace of the ocean. His heart beat heavy in his chest, not all of him convinced that this was his only option here and desperate to keep the scales, scraping claws under his skin in howling demand. But Felix was resolute and he uncurled his fingers, allowing the first scale to slip away on the current.

 _Mine, they are mine,_ hissed the part of him most frightened and angry of all. _Those scales belong to me!_

Felix clenched his jaw and delved into the pouch blindly, taking two scales out this time. He thought of how his mother’s tail had shimmered iridescent even as her blood stained the water, the ugly spear ruining the beauty of her. The current tugged the scales from his lax grip and Felix swallowed back a keen of distress.

_She will be lost to us! They will all be lost to us!_

_I lost them long ago,_ he reminded himself, and there went another pair of scales, whipped away by the hungry ocean.

_They are our family! She is our mother! Why would you let them go?_

A song blossomed in Felix’s chest, building and building until he had to relax his jaw, part his lips, and let it ring free. It swam a fine line between being a true song and being a simple cry of anguish, the tune harshly mournful and deeper than usual as a result of how far down he was. He released more scales into the care of the sea and the song rumbled out of his chest, fighting the muting effect of the enormous amount of water around him.

_We will have no-one! We will be alone again!_

_Not so,_ Felix rebutted, lips curling back from his fangs as he roared his farewell. _I have more kin now than ever before. I will not be alone._

He withdrew the last scale from the bag, his voice threatening to tremble and break as he ran his fingertips over the delicate ribbing and whorls on the scale, reading the pattern that had been unique to his mother. Then, before he could convince himself to tighten his hold and tuck it back in the pouch, he let it go.

Felix fell quiet as cold water swirled around his hand, empty-palmed but not. For a time, he did not move. The conflicting voices inside him had also gone silent and so he floated in place, not thinking or singing or crying.

Only breathing.

Only existing.

Until, eventually, he tightened his muscles, flicked his flukes, and began the swim back up.

* * *

It took Felix till dawn on his third day travelling homeward to reach the island he’d spent most of his life on, the island where he’d told Hyunjin and Minho to wait for him. Dawn was an unusual time for an ocean siren to be awake but Felix had taken pains to ensure his movements were unlikely to put him in the path of any _other_ sirens. He’d see them again when he returned to the reef, which was not what he was doing right now.

This particular journey had started out slow, Felix’s bruised and grieving heart in no rush to return, but he’d been quick to notice that he was actually speeding up. As the thought of _who_ he was returning to turned over and over in his mind, a flicker of excitement appeared amongst the steady swirl of more painful emotions. He had things to tell them, things to ask them, but most of all he just wanted see them again. Properly, this time. Those moments up at the shrine and after hardly counted.

Felix swam smooth as an eel around the island’s coast, past the beach to the collapsed hillside with the motley collection of pools at its base. A stiff breeze blew from the island out to sea, carrying with it the familiar smells of dry earth and wind-tousled trees. Suspicious instincts muttered dire warnings against donning his human skin here but Felix had no intention of doing that anyway.

Nearing the pools, he caught a whisper of a significantly more interesting scent and his pulse quickened. It was nice to have something to smile about after an intense period of mourning, no matter how short. Felix stayed well below the surface and his pace slowed. He didn’t want them to spot him before he found _them_. They were meant to be waiting, after all.

_Hot-sharp-rich-safe._

The wave of scent crashed against Felix’s senses just as he saw the end of a crimson tail tipped with near-black flukes swaying gently in the current. For a moment, he was confused. Even so early in the day, the rock pools had to be less cold than the ocean, so why wouldn’t Minho have his tail curled around himself?

Unless he’d left it out as a lure. An invitation to play.

Delight sparked behind his sternum and Felix grinned. Certain that the waters were being watched, he dived deeper, relying on his mottled teal and cerulean scales to help him stay camouflaged as he approached Minho’s tail from below. Sticking close to the slope of the island, Felix crept upwards, watching the dark fins above him for any sign that Minho knew he was being hunted. When he was barely a tail-length away, Felix tensed, coiling his muscles, and lunged up. His fangs slid and caught against the smooth scales just above Minho’s flukes, not attempting to pierce, only to hold. Minho had tried to whip his tail up almost before Felix had even opened his mouth but he went very still as Felix’s fangs found purchase. Felix held the bite briefly, waiting for Minho to relax his tail, conceding defeat, and he was wearing a very smug smile on his face when he broke through the surface a moment later.

‘Hello there,’ he said, gleeful.

Minho was sitting bolt upright in his pool, still a little wide-eyed, and Hyunjin stretched out over the edge of his adjacent pool, long hair framing his look of astonishment.

‘You’re fast,’ Minho said by way of reply. ‘Been practising biting people’s tails, sweetheart?’

The endearment rolled off his tongue easier than it had a few days ago and Felix’s smile relaxed into something a little more genuine. ‘Only on you.’

Lifting the end of his tail out of the water to examine it, the flukes curling down to brush his hair, Minho commented, ‘In that case, I’m impressed I haven’t lost any scales. Those are some very sharp fangs you have there.’ He lowered his tail, attention flicking down to Felix’s mouth and back up.

‘It must have been painful,’ Hyunjin said softly. ‘Losing your baby teeth.’

Felix met his dark red gaze. ‘Yes. I’m still new to them. They only came through a few days ago.’ And yet, a lifetime could have passed since then.

‘Will you join us up here?’ Minho asked before Hyunjin could respond. He jerked his head towards the unoccupied pool nearest them both. ‘You won’t have to fight the current.’

Dipping his chin in a quick nod, Felix braced his hands on the rough lip of the pool, beat his tail hard for momentum, and heaved himself up. Water sluiced off him and his skin prickled at the change in temperature, before he twisted, perching on the pool’s edge and sweeping his tail into the shallow water first. His body sighed in relief, happy to simply slide in and not work to keep himself in one place. The pool wasn’t deep but it was wide enough to stretch out his tail somewhat, the water barely licking at Felix’s ribs as he settled himself, the ocean at his back, Minho and Hyunjin in front.

‘How was your winter?’ Felix asked into the expectant quiet. It was as much of a genuine question as a placeholder one because he hadn’t worked out quite what he wanted to say to the sirens watching him yet.

‘Warm,’ Hyunjin replied with a smile. ‘It was good to be in the heat again. _Real_ heat, I mean. And to see those of our frenzy who don’t leave the magma rivers.’

‘Are there many of those sirens?’

‘Some.’ Hyunjin tipped his head from side to side, calculating. ‘About a third of us stay in the safety of our home year-round, although that includes the pups. They can’t change skins until they mature.’

‘Oh.’ Felix looked down at his tail with a slight frown. At what age could ocean sirens shift into their human skin? He didn’t know. Apparently, he would never run out of questions about his own kind, the gaps in his knowledge difficult to anticipate.

‘What about you, little one?’ Hyunjin asked, propping himself up on his elbows. ‘How did your first winter back with your frenzy go?’

Felix blinked, glancing between Hyunjin’s blatant eagerness and Minho’s more reserved but no less bright-eyed interest. His flukes twitched in the cool water, rippling gently. Part of him wanted to say _I missed you_ , but that was far too contentious. At least for now, when he didn’t know what _they_ really wanted to say either.

‘Busy,’ he said instead. ‘There was a lot for me to learn, still is. I’ve made some friends and they taught me how to hunt.’ The thought of Jeongin’s attempts at teaching versus Seungmin’s attempt tugged the corner of his mouth up. ‘I met a sand child.’ He didn’t think it would be long before he could call Jisung a friend too.

Minho stirred. ‘I’d heard there was one living on your side of the archipelago. They’re rare.’

‘So I’m told,’ Felix said neutrally. He wasn’t going to share any secrets that Jisung himself hadn’t let be known.

‘And the rest of your maturation went as it should?’ Hyunjin continued, crimson gaze flitting down the length of Felix’s form and up.

Felix’s skin prickled, though not unpleasantly. ‘Aside from taking almost all of winter to start the last stages? I assume it went normally.’ He flicked the end of his tail up, slapping the water with his flukes. ‘No-one’s told me otherwise. My fangs came through, then I dived and wore my deep-skin for the first time.’

It seemed both incredible and ridiculous that the most transformative days of his life could be encompassed in a single sentence. The words did nothing to convey the screaming depths of agony he’d experienced, nor the blissful heights of joy.

‘We heard you,’ Hyunjin blurted. ‘When you dived, we heard your deep-song. It’s why we came back early.’

Shock punched the breath out of Felix’s lungs and he stared, wide-eyed.

‘I know it sounds impossible, but you were _beautiful.’_ Hyunjin’s voice was hushed with wonder. ‘It was like you were calling to –’

‘How do you know what a deep-song is?’ Felix demanded.

Hyunjin froze, a startling range of emotions flickering across his face while his burgundy flukes, fluttering about behind him on account of his too-small pool, likewise went still. Curiously, Minho immediately turned to Hyunjin, shifting as though to reach out in comfort. But Hyunjin blinked out of his momentary paralysis and shook his head at Minho, the cut of his jaw severe as he pushed himself up into a seated position. His demeanour had entirely changed, everything about him radiating a gritted-teeth type of discomfort.

‘I know what a deep-song is,’ Hyunjin said haltingly, ‘because I – well, for a time I thought I would have one.’ He pinched a lock of damp hair between two fingertips, tugged sharply. ‘As did my father’s frenzy.’

Felix was speechless. Questions ran through his head and out the other side too fast for him to catch. He was fairly sure his mouth was hanging open but he wasn’t currently capable of closing it.

‘My father was an ocean siren,’ Hyunjin explained, and Felix just about choked on his next breath.

‘You’re... half ocean siren?’ Felix squeaked. ‘You can _be_ half?’ Then he recalled how Hyunjin had sung up at the shrine, quelling the sea’s fury. ‘That’s how you stopped the waves. Isn’t it?’

Hyunjin’s mouth twisted and Minho made a soft noise in his throat. ‘I renounced that side of me long ago,’ he said roughly. ‘I haven’t needed to use it for many seasons.’

‘Oh.’ The edge of Felix’s shock flattened under the weight of his realisation. This was a very personal secret of Hyunjin’s, one that he was clearly loath to speak of, and the situation was entirely too reminiscent of Chan and _his_ reluctance to talk for Felix’s peace of mind. ‘You don’t, um, you don’t have to tell me about it. If you’d rather not talk about it, that’s fine. I don’t want to cause you distress, Hyunjin.’

Hyunjin chuckled, shaky but genuine, and some of the tension knotting his shoulders melted away. ‘Thank you for the out, but I’d already made the decision to tell you. I just wasn’t expecting it to come up so soon.’

‘Alright,’ Felix accepted quietly.

Staring down at his hands, Hyunjin began, ‘There’s, well, there’s not really a lot to say. My mother was a magma siren and she gave birth to me in magma. But unlike the other pups there, I could shift skins almost immediately. Nearly died finding that out.’ He swallowed hard, tugging on his hair again and determinedly keeping his gaze low. ‘My parents wanted me to be raised between both of their frenzies, to nourish both sides of me. I was young when I started travelling between the magma rivers and the sea and I never – never fit in with the ocean side of my family. My juvenile scales were black, not grey, and that was the most blatant sign of mixed heritage I could have had.’ His lips twitched like he was holding back a snarl. ‘The other pups were cruel in their teasing and the adults distrusted me from day one.’

Felix ached with sympathy for the young Hyunjin and it almost felt odd to have someone else’s pain, bitter and cold, echoing in his heart after so long with his own.

‘But I could sing like them, like no siren purely of magma can, so they did not insist my father turned me out. Then my maturation began and my colours were revealed –’ Hyunjin tipped his head towards his tail, vivid scarlet and gleaming gold – ‘my fangs came through, and then it was time to dive.’ At last, he looked up, eyes dim with muted shame. ‘Do you know what happens to magma sirens who go too deep if they don’t initiate the changeover to their true skin?’

Felix shook his head slowly.

Not for a moment did Hyunjin’s faint smile reach his eyes as he said, ‘We start to petrify.’

Horror swept through Felix, a ruthless tide. ‘No,’ he whispered.

Hyunjin inclined his head. ‘Yes. The pain was awful enough that I didn’t persist in my downward efforts for long, but the damage done was irreversible.’ He glanced at Minho, then gathered his hair in one hand, pulling it forward over his shoulder and turning so his back was to Felix.

The skin bared was healthy and smooth except for a swathe of pale grey across Hyunjin’s nape and upper back. It didn’t look like skin. At least, not alive skin, certainly not on the body of a siren. The texture appeared rough, leathery, and inflexible.

‘Oh, Hyunjin...’ The words escaped on a mere breath of sound. ‘Does it still hurt?’

Tossing back the curtain of thick black hair, longer than any other siren’s that Felix had seen, Hyunjin twisted back around, the corners of his mouth pinched. ‘No. I can’t feel anything there.’

Water sloshed as Minho moved, leaning against the edge of his pool and stretching out an arm across the divide, offering a hand that Hyunjin accepted at once. Their fingers interlinked and the tiny obsidian piercing on the back of Hyunjin’s wrist winked in the light.

Felix fisted his own hands by his hips to keep from making the same offer as Minho.

‘So... you left the frenzy,’ he said cautiously, uncertain if Hyunjin was done talking about this.

Hyunjin sighed through his nose, more tension visibly leaving him. ‘I did. I left both of them.’ A very slight smile curled around one corner of his mouth. ‘It only took a few summers before I ran into Minho.’

‘Imagine the surprise on the faces of my frenzy leaders,’ Minho told Felix, his expression one of dry humour, ‘when I returned from a hunting trip with a stray instead of food.’

‘Seulgi said I would make a passable substitute for shark meat,’ Hyunjin huffed indignantly, but his eyes were twinkling again.

Felix held his tongue, watching the pair playfully tease each other about the encounter, and privately noted that Minho was very good at redirecting Hyunjin’s attention and the flow of the conversation. At the same time, Hyunjin was not oblivious of Minho’s efforts. The ease with which Hyunjin allowed Minho to turn the topic away from painful memories suggested this was not the first time such a thing had happened. They worked well together, this much was plain to see, a balance of give and take.

When yearning crept again through Felix’s blood, implacably visceral for all that it trod lightly, he was ready for it. Well, perhaps not that. At the very least, he was expecting it. The only question was – what to do with it?

‘You said you _heard_ my deep-song,’ Felix said into the not uncomfortable lull, looking between both magma sirens. ‘Why did you follow it? How could you even know it was me singing?’

‘As Hyunjin was saying, it sounded like you were calling us,’ Minho answered, his eyes intent upon Felix. ‘It was unmistakeably you, sweetheart.’

Felix gulped. There was no denying that at one point he _had_ been singing to them. How was he meant to have known it would carry all the way to their molten rivers?

‘And that – that was enough?’ He stumbled over the question, trying to convey his confusion, his need to know what lay at the heart of this. ‘You heard me singing to you and you just – left your home early? Winter isn’t finished yet and I know you don’t like the cold.’

Minho tilted his head. ‘But we do like you.’

The air grew seemed to still, a hush falling over the world.

Felix shivered. ‘You told me not to wait for you,’ he reiterated, voice tight, instincts in an uproar of agitation. His heart ached for a relationship of intimacy and trust with Hyunjin and Minho, like that which they had with each other, but he wouldn’t throw himself away with careless abandon, not even for them, not again.

‘And I meant it,’ Minho replied steadily. ‘Hyunjin and I couldn’t let you start your new life still holding onto us as strongly as you were. The circumstances that caused you care for us –’

‘You couldn’t _let_ me.’ Irritation scraped over Felix’s senses at the reminder of how powerless he’d been. No relationship of equals could be formed in a situation like that. They’d moved beyond that, though, so he didn’t give into the petty urge to bare his fangs, but when Minho opened his mouth to no doubt explain their earnest and well-intentioned reasoning, Felix cut him off. ‘I am aware of the circumstances _then_ , thank you. What I want to know is what are the circumstances _now?_ What changed?’

‘For one thing,’ Hyunjin began seriously, ‘you’re Felix the ocean siren now. When we left you with Chan and your frenzy, you were a frightened, lonely pup and it would’ve been grossly inappropriate of us to pursue you. Our own interests were irrelevant.’ He tossed his head as though dismissing them altogether.

‘Your own interests,’ Felix echoed, a tingling feeling racing up his spine.

‘Before I told you not to wait for us,’ Minho said, ‘we told each other that we shouldn’t wait for you, Felix. It would be unfair on all three of us.’ He cleared his throat, an incongruously abashed expression crossing his face as he looked away to his and Hyunjin’s joined hands. ‘I admit that we were rather less successful than you.’

Felix almost burst out laughing right then and there. Minho thought _Felix_ had been successful? Alright, sure, he’d taken their advice and hurled himself into his new life, holding no part of him back, but if either of them thought he’d managed to oust them from his mind, they were very wrong. Not a day had gone by that Hyunjin and Minho didn’t appear in Felix’s thoughts for some reason. Sometimes he’d missed them, but sometimes too he’d wanted to show them something, tell them something, ask them something. Theirs was not a passing imprint on his life and nor was it one Felix wanted to be free of.

But what did _they_ want? What were they hoping to get out of this? He needed to know before he did something reckless like offer them his bruised and fragile heart to do with as they liked.

Rolling onto his front, Felix coiled his tail behind him as he crawled forward on his hands through the cool water and propped himself up on the ridge of rock separating the tide pools. He was close enough to reach out and touch the sirens watching him, but he didn’t, not yet.

‘Why are you here?’ he asked softly, throttling the note of pleading that fought to get through. ‘If you came up to the surface only because you thought I was calling you... you saw me at my family’s shrine. Why did you spend days waiting here for me to come back to you?’

‘Oh, little one.’ Hyunjin released Minho’s hand and shifted closer, eyes aglow with something heartbreakingly tender and hopeful. ‘We’re here because of you, because neither of us can stay away and we’re fools for ever thinking we could. The moment I heard your deep-song and I realised that was _you_ singing to me, I thought I was going mad. I thought my mind was taunting me, offering me your lovely voice and holding it out of reach.’

Felix couldn’t _breathe_ and before he regained the ability to do so, water sloshed as Minho joined them both, the intensity of his gaze softened by the vulnerability visible in his twitching fins, the tense line of his shoulders, his wide eyes.

‘Hyunjin and I have been a pair for a long time,’ he said, the words stilted, ‘and I thought we would remain that way till the end of our days. But then we met you, sweetheart, and now – now I think we could be something more.’ He glanced swiftly at Hyunjin before lifting one hand from the pool, his fingers curled into a tight fist. ‘Now I think we could be three.’

Minho opened his hand, palm up, and revealed a tiny black pearl shimmering iridescent in the early morning light. Felix’s kicked in his chest, surely cracking a rib, while the jubilant shrieks of his instincts echoed within him. They recognised the offering for what it was and found it most satisfactory, urging him to accept it.

‘It is my fervent wish,’ Minho continued into the hush, ‘that you will let us prove ourselves as worthy life-partners for you.’

He held his hand out a little closer and Felix didn’t hesitate to offer his own hand. Relief washed some of the tension off Minho’s face and with utmost care, he placed the pearl on Felix’s palm.

‘We cannot swim with you all year around,’ Hyunjin admitted, ‘but whenever your duties and ours permit, we would gladly be your companions in deed as well as word.’

Felix stared at the black pearl in his hand. It was like the white pearls Jeongin and other ocean sirens collected and gifted to each other, but not, and it was like the obsidian Minho and Hyunjin wore, but not. A gift uniquely his. Curling his fingers around the pearl, Felix looked up and was met with vivid hope. Perhaps he was not the only one who yearned.

‘I would love,’ he replied huskily, ‘nothing more.’ Crimson eyes blew wide open but he wasn’t finished. ‘I have a gift for you both as well.’

Felix leaned in partway and, after a startled moment, they closed the final distance. Breaths mingled, faces near enough to touch, expectant gazes. Felix nudged his nose against Minho’s and then bit him on the ear, making him jolt and hiss in surprise, before turning to Hyunjin, rubbing their cheeks together, and nipped his jaw, eliciting a shrill squeak. He’d bitten just hard enough to break skin, that they would wear the mark of him on their flesh. Now he had claimed them too.

He bared his fangs at them in a fierce grin, unable to contain the sheer joy flooding him from head to flukes, leaving him giddy. ‘I don’t have obsidian or pearls to give you so that will have to do.’

Minho burst into startled laughter. ‘Thank you, sweetheart. I’ll wear it with pride.’

Probing at the bite mark with cautious fingertips, Hyunjin looked delighted at the slight smear of blood he came away with. ‘You mean it,’ he breathed, practically vibrating in place. ‘You’ll let us court you.’

A pulse of confidence had Felix open his mouth and boldly say, ‘Perhaps it is _I_ who will court _you_. As you said, I’m a full ocean siren now, which means I have at least as much to show you as you do me.’ Memory struck him then of a night some time ago, when his belly had been full of fresh meat, hot blood trailing down his chin, and an idea formed. ‘Come for a hunt with me.’

Minho blinked twice, surprised, and Hyunjin asked hesitantly, ‘Don’t you, um, have to get back to the reef? Your frenzy will be waiting for you.’

Felix cocked his head, regarding Hyunjin sultrily. ‘I am an adult. I may do as I please. Besides, I told Chan I would return when I was ready.’ Holding both of their gazes in turn, he said, ‘I do believe it’s _my_ turn to feed you.’

Hyunjin’s breath audibly left him in an unsteady rush. ‘Well, you don’t need to tell me twice.’

Meanwhile, Minho was flushing almost as red as Hyunjin’s scales. He cleared his throat and dipped his head in a quick nod, muttering something under his breath about mischievous ocean sirens getting their comeuppance when they least expect it.

Felix laughed brightly, then put his back to them and launched himself out of the pool into the cold embrace of the sea, his body sighing in content. Barely a moment passed before two huge splashes rocked him, the current bending around them. Felix turned and grinned as he was immediately encircled, Minho and Hyunjin crooning happily as they wrapped him in their arms and tails. They nuzzled at his face and stroked their fins over his, petting him until he was drunk on the comfort of their scent and the warmth of their touch.

Breaking free before he lost all coherent thought, Felix danced out of their reach, then looked back. He raised his voice in a cry of challenge, daring them to catch him, and flicked his tail, speeding away into the depths of his home. Behind him, he heard their responding cries and feral excitement spurred him on faster.

The hunt had begun.

**Author's Note:**

> i needed motivation back in august so i commissioned the wonderful sara for fanart of [hyunjin, minho, and felix](https://twitter.com/bananaseop/status/1299476144530620422) (before hyunjin's long hair was canon). go and give her lots of love for the gorgeous work she did!!
> 
> here's some more [beautiful art of felix by sara](https://twitter.com/bananaseop/status/1348940435130093570?s=19)!!


End file.
